01 Introduction
1. Why this course exists
The course Integrated Regenerative Design is positioned at the core of the KU Leuven
master programme and connects design studios, optionals and technical knowledge into
a single systemic worldview
Architecture is no longer treated as isolated buildings, but as part of interlinked material,
social and ecological systems operating across scales from materials to the planet.
The learning objectives are threefold:
students must learn to
1. critically reflect on how architecture affects planetary and social health,
2. understand humans and economies as part of nature, and
3. master the concepts and tools of regenerative design that actively restore
ecosystems instead of merely reducing damage
The evaluation reflects this ambition. Two thirds of the grade comes from a multiple-choice
exam testing all lecture content, and one third from active participation, meaning you must
actively contribute knowledge and insight on MS Teams throughout the semester
To structure architectural thinking, the course uses the layered building model:
from materials → structure → skin → services → spaces → users → surroundings → planet.
This allows designers to see how decisions at one layer influence the entire system.
2. What is regenerative design?
The word regenerative originates from medicine and biology. It means the ability of a living
system to restore itself. In the lecture three meanings are defined:
1. A living organism: the renewal of tissues or organs after damage
2. A place: improving a neighbourhood or city so it becomes more active, inclusive and
thriving
3. An ecosystem: restoring the ecological health of forests, wetlands or landscapes
In architecture, regenerative design means moving beyond sustainability.
Sustainable design tries to be less bad:
it reduces energy use, emissions and waste and aims for net-zero.
,Regenerative design aims to be net-positive:
it restores ecosystems, builds social health, and replenishes natural resources instead of
only minimising damage.
This shift is visualised in the lecture diagram: architecture moves from
Business As Usual → Reduce → Avoid → Restore → Regenerate,
which corresponds to moving from ecological loss to ecological gain.
So regenerative design is defined as:
“An approach in which human systems are designed to co-exist and co-evolve with natural
systems, ensuring planetary and social health.”
3. Sustainable vs regenerative — real examples
Three examples show the difference:
Sea Vegetable (Japan) grows seaweed in the ocean and on land. This does two things
simultaneously:
it absorbs CO₂ and supports marine biodiversity. That is regenerative, because it actively
improves ecosystems.
Kamikatsu (Japan) is a zero-waste town that sorts waste into 45 categories and recycles
over 80%.
This is sustainable because it reduces harm.
But the community engagement it creates—people working together and valuing their
environment—is regenerative.
ReforesTerra (Brazil) restores 2,000 hectares of forest on degraded farmland.
Beyond carbon storage, it improves water cycles, biodiversity and local well-being, which is
fully regenerative
4. Why does regenerative design matter? The planetary crisis
The lecture frames Earth as a living patient. Scientists identified nine planetary
boundaries that keep the planet stable: climate, biodiversity, water, land, nutrients,
chemicals, ozone, aerosols and oceans.
By 2023, six of these nine boundaries have been crossed, meaning Earth is no longer in a
safe operating space.
This marks the Anthropocene: a geological era in which human activity shapes Earth systems
more than natural forces
The photographer Edward Burtynsky documents this through images of waste mountains,
mines, deforestation and industrial landscapes. These images make visible what normally
remains hidden: the physical footprint of civilisation.
2
,5. The human-ecological emergency
The panel discussion provides shocking facts:
• 1.2 billion people lack waste collection, so waste is burned or dumped
• Cities occupy only 2% of land but consume over 70% of resources
• 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing
• Agriculture uses 70% of global freshwater
• Only 15% of coastal areas remain ecologically intact
• Wildlife populations declined 73% in 50 years
• Global CO₂ emissions reached 38 billion tonnes in 2024
• 500,000 tons of microplastics enter oceans yearly
• 1 ton of lithium needs 500,000 liters of water
• Rich countries use 27 tons of materials per person, poor countries only 2
• The construction sector alone uses 50% of extracted materials, 30% of water, and
produces 30% of waste.
This means architects are not neutral designers: the built environment is one of the largest
drivers of ecological breakdown.
6. The economic system behind the crisis
The root cause is an economy based on continuous GDP growth. GDP measures the total
value of goods and services, but ignores ecological and social health.
Already in 1972, The Limits to Growth showed that exponential growth on a finite planet
leads to collapse.
The key question becomes:
Can human well-being be decoupled from resource consumption and environmental
destruction?
One pathway is the circular economy, using recycled materials instead of extracting new
ones.
A deeper transformation is the regenerative economy, which generates value by restoring
ecosystems and growing materials.
This is where material effectiveness becomes crucial:
materials must not only perform technically, but must also produce positive ecological
outcomes.
Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics provides the framework:
a safe space between social needs and planetary boundaries, where societies can thrive
without overshooting Earth’s limits.
3
, 7. Who can drive change?
Three actors shape the transition:
Policymakers set rules and incentives, but are constrained by political pressure.
Companies can innovate, but are often trapped by price competition.
Citizens—including architects—are powerful because values, behaviour and
participation influence both politics and markets.
This connects to the idea of sufficiency: living well with less space, fewer materials, but
more shared value, such as co-housing and collective infrastructure.
8. Regenerative design across scales
The course is organised by scale:
Planet → Region → City → Building → Layers → Materials.
Examples include:
• New Zealand’s Whanganui River, which was given legal rights as a living entity
• Rotterdam’s green infrastructure, buffering floods and droughts
• Schools and buildings integrating ecosystems
• Mycelium-based materials, grown from fungi and waste streams
This shows that regeneration must happen from territorial governance to microscopic
material design.
9. The three core principles
Regenerative design always works with three interconnected lenses:
1. Designing with and for Nature
Learn from biology, use living materials, treat ecosystems as infrastructure, design for
decomposition and more-than-human life.
2. Designing with and for Places
Respond to local conditions, integrate rather than segregate, regenerate land, clean
pollution and connect architecture to stewardship.
3. Designing with and for People
Create healthy communities, use participatory democracy, respect indigenous knowledge,
ensure environmental justice and protect the commons.
4
1. Why this course exists
The course Integrated Regenerative Design is positioned at the core of the KU Leuven
master programme and connects design studios, optionals and technical knowledge into
a single systemic worldview
Architecture is no longer treated as isolated buildings, but as part of interlinked material,
social and ecological systems operating across scales from materials to the planet.
The learning objectives are threefold:
students must learn to
1. critically reflect on how architecture affects planetary and social health,
2. understand humans and economies as part of nature, and
3. master the concepts and tools of regenerative design that actively restore
ecosystems instead of merely reducing damage
The evaluation reflects this ambition. Two thirds of the grade comes from a multiple-choice
exam testing all lecture content, and one third from active participation, meaning you must
actively contribute knowledge and insight on MS Teams throughout the semester
To structure architectural thinking, the course uses the layered building model:
from materials → structure → skin → services → spaces → users → surroundings → planet.
This allows designers to see how decisions at one layer influence the entire system.
2. What is regenerative design?
The word regenerative originates from medicine and biology. It means the ability of a living
system to restore itself. In the lecture three meanings are defined:
1. A living organism: the renewal of tissues or organs after damage
2. A place: improving a neighbourhood or city so it becomes more active, inclusive and
thriving
3. An ecosystem: restoring the ecological health of forests, wetlands or landscapes
In architecture, regenerative design means moving beyond sustainability.
Sustainable design tries to be less bad:
it reduces energy use, emissions and waste and aims for net-zero.
,Regenerative design aims to be net-positive:
it restores ecosystems, builds social health, and replenishes natural resources instead of
only minimising damage.
This shift is visualised in the lecture diagram: architecture moves from
Business As Usual → Reduce → Avoid → Restore → Regenerate,
which corresponds to moving from ecological loss to ecological gain.
So regenerative design is defined as:
“An approach in which human systems are designed to co-exist and co-evolve with natural
systems, ensuring planetary and social health.”
3. Sustainable vs regenerative — real examples
Three examples show the difference:
Sea Vegetable (Japan) grows seaweed in the ocean and on land. This does two things
simultaneously:
it absorbs CO₂ and supports marine biodiversity. That is regenerative, because it actively
improves ecosystems.
Kamikatsu (Japan) is a zero-waste town that sorts waste into 45 categories and recycles
over 80%.
This is sustainable because it reduces harm.
But the community engagement it creates—people working together and valuing their
environment—is regenerative.
ReforesTerra (Brazil) restores 2,000 hectares of forest on degraded farmland.
Beyond carbon storage, it improves water cycles, biodiversity and local well-being, which is
fully regenerative
4. Why does regenerative design matter? The planetary crisis
The lecture frames Earth as a living patient. Scientists identified nine planetary
boundaries that keep the planet stable: climate, biodiversity, water, land, nutrients,
chemicals, ozone, aerosols and oceans.
By 2023, six of these nine boundaries have been crossed, meaning Earth is no longer in a
safe operating space.
This marks the Anthropocene: a geological era in which human activity shapes Earth systems
more than natural forces
The photographer Edward Burtynsky documents this through images of waste mountains,
mines, deforestation and industrial landscapes. These images make visible what normally
remains hidden: the physical footprint of civilisation.
2
,5. The human-ecological emergency
The panel discussion provides shocking facts:
• 1.2 billion people lack waste collection, so waste is burned or dumped
• Cities occupy only 2% of land but consume over 70% of resources
• 1.6 billion people lack adequate housing
• Agriculture uses 70% of global freshwater
• Only 15% of coastal areas remain ecologically intact
• Wildlife populations declined 73% in 50 years
• Global CO₂ emissions reached 38 billion tonnes in 2024
• 500,000 tons of microplastics enter oceans yearly
• 1 ton of lithium needs 500,000 liters of water
• Rich countries use 27 tons of materials per person, poor countries only 2
• The construction sector alone uses 50% of extracted materials, 30% of water, and
produces 30% of waste.
This means architects are not neutral designers: the built environment is one of the largest
drivers of ecological breakdown.
6. The economic system behind the crisis
The root cause is an economy based on continuous GDP growth. GDP measures the total
value of goods and services, but ignores ecological and social health.
Already in 1972, The Limits to Growth showed that exponential growth on a finite planet
leads to collapse.
The key question becomes:
Can human well-being be decoupled from resource consumption and environmental
destruction?
One pathway is the circular economy, using recycled materials instead of extracting new
ones.
A deeper transformation is the regenerative economy, which generates value by restoring
ecosystems and growing materials.
This is where material effectiveness becomes crucial:
materials must not only perform technically, but must also produce positive ecological
outcomes.
Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics provides the framework:
a safe space between social needs and planetary boundaries, where societies can thrive
without overshooting Earth’s limits.
3
, 7. Who can drive change?
Three actors shape the transition:
Policymakers set rules and incentives, but are constrained by political pressure.
Companies can innovate, but are often trapped by price competition.
Citizens—including architects—are powerful because values, behaviour and
participation influence both politics and markets.
This connects to the idea of sufficiency: living well with less space, fewer materials, but
more shared value, such as co-housing and collective infrastructure.
8. Regenerative design across scales
The course is organised by scale:
Planet → Region → City → Building → Layers → Materials.
Examples include:
• New Zealand’s Whanganui River, which was given legal rights as a living entity
• Rotterdam’s green infrastructure, buffering floods and droughts
• Schools and buildings integrating ecosystems
• Mycelium-based materials, grown from fungi and waste streams
This shows that regeneration must happen from territorial governance to microscopic
material design.
9. The three core principles
Regenerative design always works with three interconnected lenses:
1. Designing with and for Nature
Learn from biology, use living materials, treat ecosystems as infrastructure, design for
decomposition and more-than-human life.
2. Designing with and for Places
Respond to local conditions, integrate rather than segregate, regenerate land, clean
pollution and connect architecture to stewardship.
3. Designing with and for People
Create healthy communities, use participatory democracy, respect indigenous knowledge,
ensure environmental justice and protect the commons.
4
