Regenerative Development Research Articles

PERMACUL(SU+RE): Designing a Sustainable and Regenerative Agricultural Eco-park through Permaculture

To protect the beauty and diversity of Quirino from the impacts of natural and human-made disasters, the call for sustainable and regenerative developments strengthens. With the introduction of permaculture in the province, it can serve as a framework for these developments. As such, the study seeks to showcase the potentials of permaculture by integrating its principles in the landscape design of Faraon Integrated Farm, as it aims to be a sustainable and regenerative agricultural eco-park. To achieve its goal, a series of literature studies, analyses, and conceptualization was conducted to identify the areas where permaculture can be incorporated. As a result, a permaculture-based landscape design of a sustainable and regenerative agricultural eco-park with a closed-loop system is developed. The eco-park was divided into six (6) permaculture zones, arranged according to the amount of attention it needs, consisting of areas chosen and designed based on the twelve (12) permaculture principles. To improve its sustainability and regenerative capacity, various technologies, practices, and techniques were also incorporated into the design, such as intercropping, use of natural farming inputs, vermicomposting, rainwater harvester & catchment, and utilization of renewable sources of energy. By imitating the Earth’s natural processes and relationships, permaculture can create sustainable and regenerative developments that could preserve and enhance the natural environment.

Current state and future of 3D bioprinted models for cardiovascular research and drug development.

In the last decade, 3D bioprinting technology has emerged as an innovative tissue engineering approach for regenerative medicine and drug development. This article aims at providing an overview about the most commonly used bioengineered tissues, focusing on 3D bioprinted cardiac cells and how they have been utilized for drug discovery and development. The review describes that, while this field is still developing, cardiovascular research may benefit from laboratory-engineered heart tissues built of specific cell types with precise 3D architecture mimicking the native cardiac microenvironment. It also describes the role played by regulatory agencies and potential commercialization pathways for direct translation from the bench to the bedside of studies using 3D bioprinted cardiac tissues.

Inclusive and regenerative urban tourism: capacity development perspectives

Purpose Using case study analysis, this paper aims to examine the application of capacity development perspectives, critical towards urban tourism that is inclusive and regenerative. Design/methodology/approach The study design used a mixed qualitative methods approach underpinned by the inclusive tourism development framework following Scheyvens and Biddulph (2017). This comprised in-depth interviews, focus groups and observational research. A community-based approach was adopted in a diverse cultural and socio-economic field setting. Findings The findings demonstrate that people who are marginalised hold valuable tacit knowledge and unique skills that can complement expert tourism knowledge and contribute to the development of more sustainable places and inclusive communities. This finding challenges claims that capacity development must occur before their participation. Local government, alongside non-government organisations and community groups, were found to have a significant role to play in ensuring that residents and people who are marginalised are included in sustainable tourism development. Originality/value This study contributes to the burgeoning discourse regarding stakeholder capacity development and readiness for inclusion in urban tourism initiatives. Importantly, regenerative development approaches are applied within the gambit of capacity development making this a unique attempt to integrate stakeholders into the design and implementation of tourism planning processes that uphold inclusive and regenerative priorities.

Fundamental research for jawbone regenerative medicine development using adipose tissue-derived stem cells

Bone loss around the teeth and jaw can occur for a number of reasons and this can lead to deterioration of the alveolar and masticatory and aesthetic disorders. Oftentimes, this impairs quality of life. It is possible to reconstruct the lower jaw using bone harvested from the patient's body but there are limitations associated with this method. Another option is using bone marrow cancellous bone fragments containing autologous bone marrow-derived somatic stem cells (BMSCs) but, again, there are limitations. Therefore, alternative methods of jawbone reconstruction are required. Dr Goichi Matsumoto, Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Kanazawa Medical University, Japan, is an expert in this area. He is exploring the potential of using adipose tissue-derived stem cells (ADSCs) in jawbone reconstruction and believes this would overcome the limitations of existing methods as well as advancing regeneration therapy. There are numerous benefits to the use of ADSCs, but in order to move forward with this it is first necessary to explore the characteristics of ADSCs in detail, this includes investigating 'the proliferation ability and multi-differentiation potential of ADSCs. This will enable high-quantity and quality ADSCs to be obtained for clinical cell-based therapy and tissue engineering. It is Matsumoto's goal to develop a new mandibular regeneration treatment that involves regenerating the mandible by locally releasing a growth factor with bone-forming ability called basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF). The researchers are also working to develop and commercialise a hybrid bone cement.

From self-sufficient provision of water and energy to regenerative urban development and sustainability: exploring the potentials in Mashhad City, Iran

Increased resource demand due to rapid urbanization has made cities like Mashhad highly dependent on their surroundings for resource supply and waste disposal, and has negatively impacted their local-regional hinterlands. To reduce the metabolic footprint of cities and create an environmentally restorative relationship between cities and their supporting ecosystems, a transition toward local alternative and renewable sources is essential. This paper explores potentials for water and energy self-sufficient provision in Mashhad using the Urban Harvesting method to practically illustrate how cities could seek opportunities to meet their needs within their boundaries before relying on external supplies. Results showed that solar photovoltaic and biogas could provide 4495.2 and 472.6 GWh/yr electricity, altogether enabling Mashhad to offset 100% of its consumption. Water cascading and recycling have the potential to meet 72% of the demand, and replace around 125 mcm/yr of imported water. Similarly, water self-sufficiency would increase by 5%–8% (8.6–14.7 mcm/yr) when collecting rainwater from rooftops.

Investigating Design Strategies for Regenerative Development

The menace of environmental dilapidation has been an issue of great concern in the built environment since the wake of the industrial revolution. Buildings have been said to be instruments that cut short the natural cycles of resources in both the human and natural ecosystem due to man’s anthropocentric mind-set and activities. Various theories, framework, and models have been proposed to facilitate re-generatively sustainable developments. This paper aims at highlighting strategies that are currently practiced in regenerative development with a view of presenting ideas for the practical application of regenerative sustainability in all its facets and phases. Relevant literature that described the processes of creating a regenerative development and the aspects in which regenerative sustainability principles are implemented were reviewed. The design strategies employed in the studied cases were described as they related to the phases and then grouped into the four facets of regenerative development. The paper, therefore, gives an idea of the various integrative element and practical strategies for the implementation of regenerative design in all its phases and facets. Clarity on the subject of regenerative development is also anticipated as examples of regenerative design element implemented in the cases under study were detailed out. These strategies, when applied with attention to place patterns and potentials in all aspects of the built environment, will help in creating a truly regenerative development in any area.

Investigating Design Strategies for Regenerative Development

The menace of environmental dilapidation has been an issue of great concern in the built environment since the wake of the industrial revolution. Buildings have been said to be instruments that cut short the natural cycles of resources in both the human and natural ecosystem due to man’s anthropocentric mind-set and activities. Various theories, framework, and models have been proposed to facilitate re-generatively sustainable developments. This paper aims at highlighting strategies that are currently practiced in regenerative development with a view of presenting ideas for the practical application of regenerative sustainability in all its facets and phases. Relevant literature that described the processes of creating a regenerative development and the aspects in which regenerative sustainability principles are implemented were reviewed. The design strategies employed in the studied cases were described as they related to the phases and then grouped into the four facets of regenerative development. The paper, therefore, gives an idea of the various integrative element and practical strategies for the implementation of regenerative design in all its phases and facets. Clarity on the subject of regenerative development is also anticipated as examples of regenerative design element implemented in the cases under study were detailed out. These strategies, when applied with attention to place patterns and potentials in all aspects of the built environment, will help in creating a truly regenerative development in any area.

Towards a necessary regenerative urban planning: Insights from community-led initiatives for ecocity transformation

This article suggests that to adequately tackle climate breakdown, urban planning needs to move beyond sustainability to incorporate regenerative development frameworks. Key to this, is activating and increasing citizen participation in a fractal-like, multi scaled, community-led, bottom up planning process, where active citizens design, construct and are part of the futures they desire for their territories. 2019’s declarations of climate emergency show that decades of sustainable development have not worked. The Sustainable Development Goals are a positive step, but sustainability’s dependence on economic growth is problematic. Recognising Earth’s limits, this article builds on degrowth ideas and doughnut economic frameworks to examine the role of community-led urban transitions in catalysing a regenerative world, where ecocities are the normative goal of contemporary cities. Challenges in scaling the Global Ecovillage Network’s process to large cities are identified and some radical governance experiments examined. Attempting to bridge activism and academia, a transdisciplinary participative action research method is used to develop a Communities of Practice ecosystem to support an eco-social just transition. This work contributes to the European Network for Community-Led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability, ECOLISE, the Horizon 2020 project UrbanA investigating Sustainable and Just Cities, and the Communities for Future action platform enabling translocal communities to connect, co-create a knowledge commons and help shape policy. Insights from Lisbon are examined with three community-led initiatives; Bela Flor, Ajuda and Marvila. These processes are still at the margins, but could soon become core activities of regenerative urban planning. Re-Making our cities, is everyone’s business.

Montology: A Transformative Frame for the Future of Education About Mountains

Montology, the transdisciplinary science of mountains, applied to education incorporates several pedagogical approaches that could be used to energize the transformative change from sustainable to regenerative development from different perspectives. We include pedagogies with learning outcomes that apply 9 different educational methodologies, and we revisit them in the context of montology to focus on integrative, holistic mountainscapes as subjects of scholastic and nonscholastic educational initiatives. We discuss how these pedagogies must engage different stakeholders, including students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines. We conclude that the future of mountain education relies on incorporating the new narrative of regenerative development, not only sustainable development, for the convergent science of mountain teaching and learning to be effective. This paper encourages educators to change paradigms to address the future agenda for education about mountains.

Navigating Climate Change: Rethinking the Role of Buildings

This paper focuses on the design of buildings as part of society’s response to the climate crisis in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. It draws on a broad literature to address two interrelated goals—first, to align regenerative development and design with the necessary bottom-up adaptation strategies and human agency, and second, to identify new, broader possible roles of buildings and responsibilities of design professionals. This required a comparison of current green building and emerging regenerative approaches and identifying the relevant characteristics of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms. The paper accepts that adaptation to climate change will, to a large extent, depend on people’s day-to-day actions in the places they live, and argues that the built environment will have to be infused with the capability to enable inhabitants’ greater agency. Viewing buildings as playing a connective role in the existing urban fabric seriously challenges the primacy of the individual building as the focus of environmental strategies. The roles of building design professionals will likely expand to include mediating between top-down imposed government controls and increasing bottom-up neighborhood-scale social activism.

Beneficial Roles of Microglia and Growth Factors in MS, a Brief Review.

Microglia are the brain resident immune cells; they can produce a large variety of growth factors (GFs) to prevent neuronal damages and promote recovery. In neurodegenerative diseases, microglia can play both benefic and deleterious roles, depending on different factors and disease context. In multiple sclerosis, microglia are involved in both demyelination (DM) and remyelination (RM) processes. Recent studies suggest a beneficial role of microglia in regenerative processes. These include the regenerative development of myelin after DM. This review gives an overlook of how microglia and GFs can influence the RM properties.

Learning from nature – Biomimicry innovation to support infrastructure sustainability and resilience

Regenerative development calls for built environment design, construction and operation approaches that do not degrade social and ecological systems but actively regenerate them, with net positive performance outcomes. Within infrastructure, existing industry approaches focus on improving sustainability and resilience through progressive reductions in negative impact. To shift beyond damage reduction towards regenerative performance, it will be necessary to harness new and innovative technologies, design and engineering approaches as they emerge. The field of biomimicry looks to biology and ecology to identify natural models that can inspire design and engineering solutions. Despite increasing biomimicry research, enquiry into infrastructure opportunities for biomimicry has been limited, and the potential for biomimicry to support regenerative performance in infrastructure has not been explored. This paper uses a systematic literature review to identify applications of biomimicry in built environment, with a focus on the potential for infrastructure applications. The paper identifies a need for further investigation into ‘system-level’ biomimicry opportunities; for clearer articulation of sustainability and resilience benefits; and for greater alignment with broader industry and global trends. The paper is relevant for practitioners, academics and government agencies looking to leverage emerging technologies and innovation to achieve project and organisational sustainability, resilience and regenerative performance objectives.

Hope in a time of civicide: regenerative development and IPAT

This paper is written as the world faces economic recovery after the Covid pandemic collapse. It also responds to the article in Sustainable Earth by Peter Hancock ‘In Praise of Civicide’ by creating a more hopeful vision of the future. Peter suggests the only hope is in psychological mind-sets that can change behaviour as nothing else will stop the path to destruction from present growth in population, the economy and technology. Rather than seeing inevitable civicidal elements, as devised in the IPAT model used by Peter and many others to explain global environmental destruction, the paper reassesses the fundamentals of this model developed by Paul and Anne Ehrlich in the 1960's. As the global economy has collapsed and environmental impacts improved everywhere, the Hancock argument based on IPAT would seem to have support. The paper shows how it is possible to grow again in the three IPAT factors if the world moves beyond sustainable development which just minimises impact to regenerative development which reclaims environmental impacts. If all three elements combine to create uncontrolled growth as was happening in the 60’s to 80’s then civicide is inevitable, but not if they change to regenerative development. The three stages of exploitive, sustainable and regenerative development turn IPAT from being negative to positive about civilization. These choices are very stark in the 2020’s. The technological possibilities of a regenerative future are outlined and the fundamentals needed for a sustainable earth are sketched, providing some evidence of hope for using the present pandemic and economic collapse as the basis for regenerating civilization not praising civicide.

Regenerative futures

Purpose This paper aims to investigate how futures concepts may further existing regenerative sustainability thinking. Design/methodology/approach This paper reviews existing regenerative fields, including regenerative design, regenerative development and regenerative sustainability as alternatives to conventional sustainability practice. It considers futures concepts that may deepen regenerative thinking and practice to develop a regenerative futures conceptual model. Findings This paper demonstrates how regenerative fields and futures studies have the capacity to reciprocally inform one another and builds upon this relationship through the development of a regenerative futures conceptual model. Originality/value This paper makes a number of theoretical contributions. First, it demonstrates how regenerative fields and futures thinking may reciprocally inform one another and, subsequently, enrich regenerative practice. Second, by drawing from futures thinking, it questions and ultimately lengthens notions of reality and time from a regenerative perspective. Finally, through the proposal of a regenerative futures conceptual model, it offers an alternative lens to analyse human behaviours and their associated impacts. In this way, it introduces a theoretical model that is focused on deep individual and collective transformation and a starting point for future research and refinement.

COVID, CITIES and CLIMATE: Historical Precedents and Potential Transitions for the New Economy

The 2020 collapse of the global economy due to the Covid-19 pandemic has enabled us to think about long term trends and what the future could hold for our cities and regions, especially due to the climate agenda. The paper sets out the historical precedents for economic transitions after collapses that unleash new technologically based innovation waves. These are shown to be associated with different energy and infrastructure priorities and their transport and resulting urban forms. The new technologies in the past were emerging but mainstreamed as the new economy was built on new investments. The paper suggests that the new economy, for the next 30 years, is likely to be driven by the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agendas (summarised as zero carbon–zero poverty) and will have a strong base in a cluster of innovative technologies: renewable energy, electromobility, smart cities, hydrogen-based industry, circular economy technologies, and biophilic urbanism. The first three are well underway, and the other three will need interventions if not cultural changes and may miss being mainstreamed in this recovery but could still play a minor role in the new economy. The resulting urban transformations are likely to build on Covid-19 through “global localism” and could lead to five new features: (1) relocalised centres with distributed infrastructure, (2) tailored innovations in each urban fabric, (3) less car dependence, (4) symbiotic partnerships for funding, and (5) rewritten manuals for urban professionals. This period needs human creativity to play a role in revitalising the human dimension of cities. The next wave following this may be more about regenerative development.

Regenerative—The New Sustainable?

Over time, sustainability paradigms have evolved from meeting human needs throughout time to improving human wellbeing and the viability of ecological systems. Regenerative sustainability (RS), the next wave of sustainability, includes and transcends these goals, aiming for thriving living systems in which whole-system health and wellbeing increase continually. A key difference between sustainability paradigms is the thinking underlying them, with regenerative sustainability based on a holistic worldview and paradigm, integrating recent understandings from science and practice, different ways of knowing, and inner and outer dimensions of sustainability necessary for systemic transformation. RS, practiced through regenerative development and design for over 50 years, aligns human consciousness and actions with living systems principles. When this alignment occurs, sustainable development goals are elevated to become regenerative development goals, with living systems principles and characteristics guiding the development of regenerative indicators and strategies made specific to a place through transformational co-creative processes. We should aim for regenerative sustainability because it offers holistic approaches based on how thriving living systems function, addresses the root causes of (un)sustainability, and is inherently more inspiring and motivational. Advancing regenerative sustainability will require fundamental shifts supported by more awareness and education, theoretical and practical development, leadership, empowering communities, and integrating spirituality.

Formation of Technological Cognitive Reason with Artificial Intelligence in Virtual Space

Reason is the basis of our knowledge. It characterizes the mindfulness of thought activity, the ability to think universally, the ability to analyze, abstract, and generalize. Thanks to reason, computers, information technology, artificial intelligence, digital twins, cognitive robots have emerged. Using advances in science and technology, the international scientific and engineering community is trying to create an information technology mind. At the current stage of development of information technologies, cognitive robotics, digital twins and artificial intelligence systems, their synergy allows to begin to form a rational cognitive mind with artificial intelligence in virtual space. A cognitive virtual mind with artificial intelligence can be formed by a cognitive ensemble of intelligent mobile diversified agents with strong artificial intelligence through the regenerative development of professional skills, enhancing them visual, sound, subject, spatial, and temporal sensitivity.

“Occupation-competition-regeneration” nexus among land uses in a Chinese city: Interactions and transformations

Cities are implementing land regeneration to ease incongruities between the supply and demand of land resources. This paper introduces the Land Competition-Allocation Model (LCAM), a land redevelopment framework based on land development processes and land competition. The model is divided into a spontaneous development stage, competitive development stage and regenerative development stage according to features of land development in different periods. Using the urban area of Tangshan as a case study, we assess the fitness of different land types in the studied area at the patch scale during the spontaneous development stage to identify regenerative objects. The competitiveness of different land use types, which serve as regenerative foundations, are analyzed and quantified in the competitive development stage. Based on the above analysis, a sequence of land regeneration is determined in the regenerative development stage. Our case study shows the effectiveness of the proposed approach in demonstrating how land uses in the study area have transformed from fragmented, scattered and disordered into centralized, agglomerated and ordered through regeneration. This paper thus offers effective theoretical and practical guidance on ways for government officials and planners to implement land regeneration.

Moving Beyond Sustainability: A Regenerative Community Development Framework for Co-creating Thriving Living Systems and Its Application

Sustainable development and design have the potential to shift their aim from improving human well-being within environmental limits to catalyzing thriving social-ecological communities (i.e., living systems) across scales. Regenerative development (RD), a methodology that harnesses the potential of living systems, offers a way forward. RD integrates science and practice with essential but often neglected components of sustainability—ecological, social, cultural, spiritual, and geophysical—as well as their temporal and spatial dynamics. It also addresses the root causes of (un)sustainability—thinking and worldviews. This research creates and pilots the first community-scale RD framework (RCD Framework) in a developing intentional community. Findings indicate that the RCD Framework achieves its intended aim of facilitating shifts in thinking and development and design concepts toward holistic and regenerative. Factors that are conducive to or impede RCD are identified, and suggestions are made for advancing RCD science and practice. Implications for larger communities, cities, regions, and sustainable development and design are discussed.

People and Nature in an Urban World

Humanity is facing an existential contradiction: we are building an urban future for ourselves, yet urbanization in its current form is threatening the very future of humanity and the natural world. Urban growth is a seemingly unstoppable worldwide process. Much has been written about this historic trend, but the environmental impacts of an urbanizing world are barely discussed.