As climate instability intensifies, causing a dearth of resources, a new design ethic is emerging in the built environment.

Regenerative design invites a deeper kind of engagement, asking architects and designers to move beyond harm reduction and instead create places that restore the land, support the climate and strengthen the communities they serve. With deep roots in Indigenous cultures, the practice is far from new but experienced a resurgence in the 2010s.

What is changing now is the urgency and the way built environment professionals are embedding regenerative strategies into construction methods, material selection and civic planning. In Australia and New Zealand, this mindset is beginning to reshape the relationship between architecture and place.

The guiding principles of regenerative design

At the heart of regenerative design lies a shift in consciousness. It moves beyond harm minimisation and towards a mindset of contribution, one that seeks to heal, renew and uplift the places we shape. The regenerative design and development method identifies four guiding principles that bring this ambition into focus.

The first is co-evolving mutualism. This principle recognises that people and nature are part of the same living system. Design, in this context, becomes a means of nurturing mutually beneficial relationships between communities, ecosystems and built form. Rather than controlling or extracting, the goal is to co-evolve.

The second principle involves contextual practicality. Because every site carries unique ecological, cultural and historical narratives, regenerative design can respond to these specificities, drawing strength from Country, climate and community to shape buildings that belong rather than impose.

Regenerative capability, the idea that built environments should not just perform sustainably but should actively build capacity within their ecosystems and users, is the third principle. This means enhancing biodiversity, cultivating social cohesion or supporting local enterprise. It asks what systems we are leaving stronger than we found them.

Finally, location of place, the fourth principle, asks us to consider the deeper purpose of a site. What is it called to become? What role might it play in restoring the health of its larger watershed, bioregion or community?

Together, these four principles form a compass for design that aspires to give more than it takes, an empathic approach to design that is less a technique than a way of seeing.

From sustainable to regenerative

Sustainability once held the high ground in green design, but as the climate crisis deepens, there is growing recognition that sustainability sets the bar too low. Albeit critical, simply avoiding harm will no longer suffice. 

Regenerative design responds to systems rather than symptoms. It begins with an understanding of interdependence. A regenerative building goes beyond energy efficiency or low impact. It may generate more energy than it consumes, purify water, restore soil systems, foster biodiversity or deliver enduring social value. Rather than standing apart, it operates as a living part of the ecological and human networks around it.

The Australian Institute of Architects has acknowledged this shift in thinking, curating a suite of regenerative design resources through its South Australian chapter. The tools focus on aligning contemporary practice with custodial care, cyclical material flows and design for future generations. The message is clear: regenerative design demands more than technical compliance. It asks for imagination, humility and reciprocity.

Designing for net-positive impact

In New South Wales, the Bradfield City Centre First Building offers a practical example of regenerative intent taking shape. Designed by Hassell in collaboration with the Western Parkland City Authority, the building anchors what will become one of Australia’s most ambitious city-scale experiments in future-focused urbanism.

“We approached the First Building not just as a standalone project, but as the foundation of an entirely new city,” says Hassell managing director Liz Westgarth. “That meant taking a long view. It sets the tone for what this place can become.”

From day one, regenerative design shaped every decision, from circular construction and material selection to long-term cultural and ecological relevance. “We wanted to create something that wasn’t just innovative today, but resilient and adaptable for tomorrow,” Westgarth says. “A building that supports community and Country and evolves with both.”

With adaptability a design imperative, Hassell opted for a modular timber structure assembled like a kit-of-parts. “Every element is mechanically fixed, not bonded, so it can be taken apart, reconfigured or even relocated,” Westgarth explains. “We wanted to create a building that could shift and respond, that wouldn’t lock the future in place.”

Circular thinking underpins the entire structure, with more than 90 percent of construction waste diverted from landfill. Locally sourced timber was prioritised to cut transport emissions and support regional suppliers. “It’s low-carbon and high-performance,” Westgarth says, “but more than that, it’s a living framework that can adapt with the community it serves.”

Grounding design in Country and culture

At Bradfield, regeneration also meant grounding the project in deep cultural significance. “The challenge wasn’t just about embedding Country-centred principles,” Westgarth says. “It was about making sure they shaped the project from the ground up.”

Hassell worked in close consultation with cultural design agency Djinjama, embedding Dharug knowledge and values into the fabric of the design. The building’s form draws on the significance of Wianamatta, meaning ‘Mother Place’ in the Dharug language, an area of deep importance to First Nations women.

“That respect comes through in the building’s form,” Westgarth says. “It’s welcoming, open and expressive of water and flow.” Materials like rammed earth, bamboo and timber were chosen for their tactility and warmth, reinforcing a sense of place that feels natural, soft and grounded.

Westgarth describes the roof as a canvas for ecological renewal. Planted with 14,000 native species, it references the Cumberland Plain’s tree canopy and serves multiple purposes at once: cooling the structure, managing water and restoring biodiversity. “It’s about reintroducing ecology and making it visible again,” she says.

Living buildings in Aotearoa

For Wellington-based architecture practice Tennent Brown, regenerative design is inseparable from cultural responsibility. “We’re not trying to soften the harm,” says director Ewan Brown. “We’re asking how a building can actively improve the land, the water and the community it sits within.”

Two of the studio’s most ambitious projects, Ngā Mokopuna in Wellington  and Pā Reo in Otaki, 1 hour north of Wellington, are pursuing full certification under the rigorous Living Building Challenge. That puts them among only 35 projects worldwide attempting the standard’s most stringent level, which includes performance-based targets for net-positive energy, water and materials, as well as deep community and cultural integration.

The off-grid visitor centre at Ngā Mokopuna foregrounds ecological repair, combining composting toilets and water-harvesting infrastructure with local materials and minimal intervention on a site of deep significance to mana whenua (the indigenous people (Māori) who have historic and territorial rights over the land). “It’s about honouring the land, not dominating it,” Brown says.

In contrast, Pā Reo is grounded in urban complexity. Design for Te wananga o Raukawa, a Maori tertiary education provider, the project champions Māori values in everything from its mass timber structure to spatial orientation and acoustic design. “Regeneration here means the strengthening of language, identity and intergenerational care,” Brown explains.

Both projects reflect an approach that extends far beyond sustainability. “The standard just sets the floor,” Brown says. “The real work is about relationships with iwi, with place, with what the future asks of us.”

The road ahead

Regenerative design is a living practice that requires designers, clients and policymakers to expand their definitions of value and success. Its promise is bold: architecture that repairs, reconnects and reimagines the built environment as part of nature, not apart from it.

If sustainability is about efficiency, regeneration is about generosity, and in a world facing cascading crises, the act of giving back may be design’s most powerful contribution.

Related: Read more about designing on Country on ADR.