#114: Regenerative Design in Practice, with Scott McAulay (Architype)

[00:00:00] My definition on regenerative is a practice or an outcome that does more good, that is compassionate, that has care at the kind of heart and soul of it. And that it's also looking at these kind of wider opportunities to give back to a planet from which we have taken far too much, but also to take care of people at the same time.

[00:00:24] Welcome to the Green Urbanist podcast, where we explore sustainable placemaking, climate action in cities and urban rewilding. I'm your host Ross O'Cealli, an urban designer, educator and sustainable placemaking consultant. Hello, great to be back with another episode with Scott McAulay, who is Regenerative Design and Infrastructure Specialist at the Architecture Studio Archetype.

[00:00:49] Scott joined me on two previous episodes, all the way back in episode 31 and then more recently for episode 100. Links to those episodes are in the episode description if you want to check those out afterwards. But today's episode is all about regenerative design. And as you'll have heard from Scott's job title, that's something that he's very much focused on now in his job at Archetype.

[00:01:12] We're going to hear about what regenerative design means to him in practice, how it goes beyond the typical more technical definitions of that, of being about, you know, reducing emissions below net zero carbon or water use and biodiversity, which are all very important. But how regenerative design is also about process, about how you impact local economies, how your schemes are related to social justice and a just transition.

[00:01:40] It's a huge, huge, big conversation that we get into today all around this. And I really, really enjoyed it. You'll have heard a little clip right at the start before the introduction of Scott talking about what regenerative design means to him. So that comes up in the episode and we get into more detail on that. Let's get straight into the conversation. Really hope you enjoyed this chat with Scott. Tell us who you are, what you do and just those sort of basic stuff.

[00:02:10] And then we want to jump a little bit more into the work you're doing. OK, so, yeah, my name is Scott. I'm a regenerative design and infrastructure specialist with Archetype. And that role is very much, it begins on the base of kind of technical expertise and specialisms. So material studies, circular economy, regenerative resource propositions, lifecycle analysis, lots of the kind of the gubbins that make projects that bit better, look at the wider data, but also the kind of the communication part.

[00:02:40] But a really key part of that role is not just the design and supporting teams across our projects, but it's really about cultivating conducive infrastructures for delivering regenerative design. So the social, the economic, the cultural and the environmental is that full kind of four wider pillars of sustainability. I've also got a background in kind of education. I've done a lot of work for the Infrabris and Architecture School where I've taught a few kind of between 7000 and 8000 people internationally.

[00:03:09] Last year I had work kind of published in four different books and I did some, I do some work with the architecture fringe in Scotland. So I co-produce events, work on kind of cultural programming and yeah, I do all sorts of little bits and pieces around the built environment and just kind of wider advocacy for a just transition and that in wider society. Excellent. Good introduction. Let's talk a bit about your current role with Archetype.

[00:03:37] How did that job come about? It's a very different sort of job title to anything most people would have heard of before. Oh, absolutely. So I was, when it came to developing the job, infrastructures was very much from my own kind of personal perspective. But to kind of give that wider trajectory and journey, I joined Archetype back in 2021 under a kind of part two architectural assistant, but predominantly focusing on sustainability coordination.

[00:04:04] I helped develop the practices climate action roadmap. I did kind of support on material strategies and wider sustainability targets for quite large projects. And it was sort of looking at the wider upscaling as well. So that was a big part of me joining the company. It was, I was bringing my background and kind of the expertise and passion that I've got and being given space for that to kind of grow and flourish.

[00:04:29] And kind of over the kind of, I'd say over the kind of past, I moved into the role about seven, eight months ago. And the kind of six months before that, we're kind of in conversations about longer term futures and what direction is the industry going in. And things like circular economy and regenerative design were very much kind of forefront of the industry's conversations. And I've been kind of working around regenerative practice within and beyond Archetype for quite some time, been kind of introduced to it several years prior.

[00:04:59] And in developing that role, it was, it couldn't simply be another sustainability specialist. It couldn't just be you just do the fine tuning of buildings. I came at it and we co-developed the role. It wasn't simply I had an idea and it was kind of ticked and crossed. It was very much, we looked at how wider operations of Archetype works. So in Archetype, we do not have a sustainability team or one point of contact whose responsibility is to carry sustainability.

[00:05:28] That's something that all of our co-owners know that from day one, you're part of your job day to day is pushing the boundaries of building performance. For 40 years, Archetype have extended the horizons of sustainability and shown what's possible through buildings, setting some kind of benchmarks that have held their own, like the Enterprise Centre for 10 years solid.

[00:05:50] And so in developing that role, it was how do we support our teams with this expertise that I have in a targeted way that's not so much joining the dots, but is operating within the space between different teams, but also working on projects. So I do lifecycle analysis. I've worked quite a lot on Enerfit informed retrofit plans, looking at the carbon impacts and the operational carbon usage of non-domestic buildings six years into the future,

[00:06:19] depending on what level of retrofit you take them to, from case one doing nothing, what is that impact, to case five, six, seven, what the full Enerfit look like. So in developing that role, it was kind of looking at how do you create the time to identify emergent possibilities across projects to have regenerative impacts. So because I was hired and came in to work across studio, I came in 2021.

[00:06:48] It was hybrids. Most of our teams are online starting to go into the studios in the kind of year and a bit afterwards. And I was working on all sorts of different projects from carbon calculations to looking at wider sustainability goals and just how far can you push them. So I was in quite an anomaly and a unique position where I knew lots of the people who had done what, who had the expertise, what project this had been pushed on before.

[00:07:16] So I was able to sort of weave together different responses, but not just weave together responses. But I could take a step back and say there's two things happening simultaneously across projects. If I was to spend one hour on this project, I would actually be spending one hour on that project, developing and nourishing the same thing. So from a purely efficiencies perspective, it was about stepping back, fine tuning, optimizing, but it's also about acting on emergent opportunities.

[00:07:45] So I also do kind of communications, upskilling and really like relationship building and even kind of even public events. I've done parts of how we've engaged with our kind of local community and the industry around us in Edinburgh. So it's very much a role that encompasses many, many, many things. There's that basis and kind of the sustainability delivery on projects,

[00:08:11] that coordination, that lifecycle analysis, that material expertise, my backgrounds in natural building, hemp, crete, straw, bale, clay. They're some of my favorite things in the world. But it was about how do you bring this into project and identifying sort of the same way you would talk about a retrofit trigger point. Like at what point can you initiate the retrofit of building?

[00:08:32] I got very good at identifying points for really raising the bar for an invitation with clients. So this is something you want to do or this is something you want to learn. This can actually go so much further. Like what you want to do is amazing. And by doing that, you've actually unlocked the possibility of doing this additional sustainability thing as well. So my favorite,

[00:08:58] the way that I teach and the way that I bring it back to when I'm talking in our teams, the circular economy is a portal concept. It's something that through the circular economy, we can start to talk about regenerative design. We can start to talk about resources, global justice, the just transition, resource scarcity. through that one, what had become a buzzword, I can open up conversations on just about any aspect of a sustainability roof. And we can weave them back.

[00:09:26] And we can use the education on the circular economy to actually expand those horizons into regenerative design. So lots of what I'm doing is, lots of it is on emergence. It's very much on what's happening where. I do quite a bit of project time where I'm not doing what you'd explicitly call regenerative design, calculating life cycle analysis, kind of carbon, whole life carbon, is part of getting there, but it wouldn't say it's the be all and end all.

[00:09:52] But I'm in this role that's kind of quite focused on emergence. It's looking for those opportunities. It's stepping back and mapping. I've been sort of charting our climate literacy in the project since I joined year by year. So I'm also identifying where our corners have kind of gaps to learn or additional things we could bring in through CPD. But it's not a head of sustainability role by any stretch of the imagination.

[00:10:19] I am not responsible for all of our projects in that circumstance. What I do is I bring, I am someone that any project team can approach. If something comes up that's materials have become available, where can we, is there any projects we could use them on to one example? Or we're beginning this new school project, and we'd really like to talk about the wider possibilities based on what we've done before, what we've done elsewhere.

[00:10:48] Or it might be my favourite one, my niche is becoming agricultural college campuses. We're doing some refurbishment and new build, and looking at new build for an agricultural college. Can you look at possible opportunities that could be regenerative for that project and that locale? And I bring my kind of background and materials. I've got a really good wider picture of what's been going on in construction through my work with the Ampherson Architecture School, the Architects Climate Action Network.

[00:11:17] I've got to meet so many people. So when it comes to, we're doing a project here, I'm like, great, I will open up a conversation with a friend I have down there, and we'll see, like, do you have any idea of what materials are going on? Is there anything we should be aware of? And it's just this, yeah, it's very much been a role I've been growing into. It does have a scope. It has been written down to say, this is what your job is. But it's growing into those opportunities

[00:11:45] in a way that has not really been done before. And it's exciting because of that, because I'm approaching projects in the way of imagining how regenerative can this be? And that's very much my job on the project. I come out, how regenerative can this be? What opportunities are there? Are we doing anything else at the same time that overlaps with that? It's complementary. Or are we doing something that,

[00:12:14] if we taught it to the wider industry, would that have a big impact? Like, just kind of, how do we share and kind of disseminate learnings to do beyond the current curve of sustainability architecture? But I could talk about it at quite great length. It's just, it is a real joy. And it was something that I'm very grateful that Archetype decided, let's take the risk. Let's do the,

[00:12:42] let's give Scott some space to experiment and let's see what we can do through projects. And it's already having kind of cascading effects across projects. It is an interesting theme I've noticed across interviewing lots of people who are in sustainability or regenerative roles is it, I think it's happening more and more now that roles are created and then advertised and people apply for them. But I think still to this point, there's a lot of really important roles

[00:13:12] within practices that are just sort of invented by people that are working there or co-created with someone. And I think it's kind of career advice I give to people of saying, you know, there's so many people who are like top of the game in terms of sustainability who do not have a degree related to sustainability, but they've just learned all this stuff on the job. And then they've made, they've been very tenacious about like applying it, talking to their colleagues, talking to their collaborators and their clients and trying to push forward with it

[00:13:41] and then like learning and iterating in practice. Has that been kind of the case for you as well? Oh, absolutely. I would say that I don't really use much of what I was really taught in my degree. Kind of, I've, the sustainability wise, I very much went to look elsewhere and in practice I've always, I love, I've found, I've realized I love to learn. So I'm always kind of looking to expand my own sort of understanding and natural materials

[00:14:11] and regenerative design became a real kind of passion and keen interest for me. And when, when I came into the practice it was very much, that was celebrated. That was a, when I interviewed my opening kind of thing on, here's a project that I've worked on, it's here's my favorite, I did my first, my first ever construction site was a hempcrete chalet in the French Alps. And I opened a vest and I was like, I guess get excited about these things and I'm not going to be ashamed of it. I'm just going to be very forfeit.

[00:14:41] And I got asked in that job interview, like, how do you feel about learning? Like, would you be up for learning about this specific thing about life cycle analysis? I'm like, that just sounds really cool. Yeah. Like, I've seen things about that and I would love to understand it. And it really kind of grew from there because I was doing different, I was doing other things at the same time. So initially when I started, I was on a three day week. I was asked what my ideal circumstance was and I said, I'm doing lots of ad hoc, eclectic teaching and stuff.

[00:15:10] And because it was the kind of that sustainability piece, which is the kind of carbon consultancy, that wasn't always going to be coming in the door with a consistency that Passive House schools are, for example. So I would be, that worked really well. And then as I kind of really settled in and felt at home, I was like, I really want to push more. And after my kind of initial, I was, I had a strange thing for me that would surprise people. I felt I had to be polite for six months

[00:15:38] and I shouldn't rock the boat too much and I should say things but not just push overtly. And after that, and I felt comfortable and I've been encouraged, I was always being encouraged to kind of order things that could this go more? Have you, in presenting this, has this been made more kind of palatable? Or as, and I was always encouraged. I wasn't, at no point did anyone say that's too much, stop it. It was very much, you've started on this thing, like where else can this go?

[00:16:06] And I was really just encouraged to show up as myself fully and just like, here is what I, I care very, very loudly and very overtly and openly. And that was encouraged and the kind of iterative learning and it was a real culture and archetype of passing on learning and nourishing the learning of kind of younger co-owners and if there's ever a project where I've been working on and I'm like, oh, I've seen this has been done elsewhere and if I reach out to the project architect and say,

[00:16:36] can we grab like a half hour, hour long chat? Can you teach me how you did that? Can you talk me through that project? And that was always welcomed. So it was always a kind of, that dissemination of knowledge and passing on was always there and then that got kind of incorporated, before I even took on the agenda design part, that was incorporated into my role where I would be doing the support for less experienced co-owners starting to learn about life cycle analysis. So I would be, say we're looking at six skills,

[00:17:04] I'd be crunching carbon numbers on three of them, I'd be supporting people on two to three others and that was just, that's really built into the ethos and the culture of learning and we're iterating and we're sharing but also after every project we're going to sit down and say, what did we learn from that and how can we improve next time? And, but I definitely think that's the best, the advice I give to students is show what you're passionate about instead of the, instead of show them what you think they want to see,

[00:17:34] that's 19th, 20th century ideas of mould yourself into the job that you don't understand yet. It's go in and show them what excites you and what you're interested in and that went, that went down really well and kind of co-designing the role, we were going back back and forth and it was sort of not just like what's the remit but how does this operate and how does it sit alongside project time

[00:18:03] and we kind of were looking at what we, what the kind of, one of the kind of experiments is that on a Monday, so kind of like 25% of my week at the moment, I work a four day week, going to go up sooner or later, on a Monday that's my regenerative design and infrastructure's resourcing capacity. If any architect, any kind of assistant, any engineer, anyone wants to grab me on that day, everyone knows that's a day you can just grab Scott

[00:18:32] or if I, if something's going to come up later in the week, I can reallocate that resource to that opportunity later in the week and I will take the project time into the Monday. So, very malleably, I can look at a week and say, I'm going to do wider strategy, this thing is coming up so I'm going to put some time to that but it also means that we've got, we're seeing like how much time can go on to this, will go on to this but we're experimenting and iterating. So it's, this is kind of iteration one is

[00:19:02] what is the outcome of me being given 25% of my time to be on regenerative outcomes and this kind of identifying of opportunities across our work and 75% on kind of projects as projects that are still likely doing regenerative design but are more kind of project focused and are focused on that one sort of piece of work and that's been incredible because like one lovely example

[00:19:32] was a colleague stopped by my desk when I was in the studio and said I've just been told by a friend in a practice in London that there are lots of materials going for free through this material platform are there any projects that we currently have where we can use them they don't know how long the window of time is is that now part of your job I kind of stopped and went well I'm going to say yes because why not like that's not something that's kind of architecture

[00:20:01] school 101 how do you relocate materials from London to somewhere else in the UK but it was because we had that and because I've got that role it gives everyone that bit of permission to say this is something that could push the boundaries but I don't have time at the moment and my team is a bit stretched where else can we does this actually sync up with something else we're doing so I've been looking at lots of circular economy so on another

[00:20:31] project we're looking at a building I was like right why don't I sync up our CPD so that you can bring in the project team and we can all learn about this potential thing together and we can actually turn it into sort of like a nourishing this relationship with the design team and that's something else I've got kind of scope to do within the role is to kind of look at these things and say this would be a great thing to do or we've had the CPD from a deconstruction contractor let's keep that conversation going we learned

[00:21:01] a huge amount from the people doing the practical disassembly of buildings that that's something that we definitely need to recognise and celebrate and build upon by doing more it might not be projects it might be events it might be roundtables but how do we keep on nourishing these possibilities and by having that time where people know there's a bank of time where if it suddenly comes up we'd like

[00:21:30] to benchmark the carbon on an ongoing project we know that there might be a possibility to do that and if we can't do it this week maybe next week or the week after and we know that there's that kind of sort of the I can't think of a great I'll think of an analogy for it eventually probably after the episode but you've got that resource to tap into it's not the resource it's freed up because I've always got something to do there's always something going on or

[00:22:00] something we can be developing or iterating or learning from or refining our own internal systems so that I can improving our systems so that I can have that wider view of syncing up opportunities and time and resource and efficiencies at the same time as looking at what's going on around us as well so it's very different than I did start to look at the part three for

[00:22:30] architecture about a year and a half ago I looked at it and I did some of the reflections and I was wondering this doesn't quite feel like me this role the work that I'm doing is very very difficult to retrofit into what people want an architect to be in a 20th century but yeah it's sounds like me doing a couple years ago making a start on the Rural Town Planning Institute

[00:23:00] accreditation and I was like sort of going through it and just being like I'm not a proper planner and I probably don't ever really want to be so why am I doing this and I just gave up on it probably you know it's good to do these things for your career but at the same time you have to just decide what your are moving into such new territory now the sort of as you said the 19th 20th century ideas of what our professions are feel very outdated sometimes

[00:23:30] that was a big part one kind of a wider part of the having infrastructures in the role was very very intentional because also we wanted to open up a conversation in the industry beyond just trying to deliver retentive outcomes through design thinking and also recognising through that sort of phrasing and that approach that it's incredibly difficult in today's current systems with the infrastructure we have with the policies we have the

[00:23:59] regulations even the cultural assumptions on what certain types of buildings are to deliver regenerative outcomes and to actually practice regenerative design so it's quite looking at recognising the wider space in which we operate in and recognising that it's a collaborative effort that we are part of and that kind of the infrastructure piece can be looked at from cultural infrastructure social infrastructure energy

[00:24:29] infrastructure it can be looking at it from all sorts of different directions but it's absolutely not the kind of architect as master builder and soul genius who moves the world by themselves supposedly giving credit to all our technicians and team but it's very much a kind of working with that because that's kind of

[00:25:15] infrastructure but I can do it this is something I can do like this is a if we're going to have regenerative buildings and architecture and a regenerative industry we need the infrastructure that's going to make it work

[00:25:52] and it's vocally got behind this because recognising that I also talk about passive house as a portal concept because if you want to deliver a passive house building you have to approach it very rigorously there's already a methodology that you can grow outwards from and it's recognised it resonates with people it also has evidence that shows it works for decades and you can fine tune it through building performance

[00:26:22] evaluations so through passive house you can talk about building performance evaluation but as you start to look at energy and you start to look at comfort you can then expand into materials and carbon and you've got this great starting piece for incredible architecture and for a lot of people it's become divisive because as soon as you have something where people are kind of championing it and pushing it and if it's changing and bucking a trend

[00:26:51] it's going to get kickback but through the Scottish passive house equivalent that could revolutionise all new housing in Scotland passive house housing in terms of heat demand is about five to six times less than building regulations and so another part of that advocacy is recognising that regenerative design is not just about drawing a circle of regenerative design and staying inside it and saying this is what we need

[00:27:21] and that's it it's about the porosity and looking outwards and the plurality but also the engagement with how the industry is working and that advocacy and that taking apart those invitations the collaborations and also those like I think the invitations are probably some of the biggest parts the I recently did a piece of work on regenerative resource recommendations so looking at kind of circular economy opportunities

[00:27:50] and simply looking at what you could do whilst taking down buildings it really excited the client the client really wants to they then said like okay that's great can we now can we now do more about this and the question I'm asked quite often from people even I've done quite a while is is your job profitable and it completely blows my mind that we're talking about something like regenerative design we're looking at doing more good for the planet we're looking at

[00:28:20] social justice and creating a just space for people working at having a just transition to a greener future and there is still this one question of is this job making money to sustain itself and I think that's it really is a real signal that as an industry we need to stop for a moment and ask some really deep questions on in an industry that is

[00:28:49] totally dependent on endlessly speculatively building new buildings living on planet absolutely not but what I found is as you start to look at the co-benefits the opportunities the possibilities on delivering regenerative outcomes for people through buildings I'm not just going to say regenerative architecture and pretend that's the be

[00:29:19] all and end all I've given the lecture to universities twice so it's looking at regenerative architecture the exemplary and the everyday so looking at the retrofit of schools looking at the places we spend our time as much as that zero carbon school that demonstrates things are incredible and as an industry we really need to start having those conversations but also we need to recognise that regenerative outcomes within today's

[00:29:49] infrastructure and systems are going to be duplicated struggle until we effect changes on those systems and that's the infrastructure part is grounding us in that reality but also it's also identifying the absolutely dreamlike scale of the opportunities available to us as well can we cycle back a bit and I might just edit this back in at the beginning for people who missed our previous chat

[00:30:19] your definition of regenerative design and how that infrastructure piece fits in with it and maybe give us a bit of background on how that term has been evolving and how you're using it which might be different I think would be really helpful for people yeah pleasure so my definition on regenerative is a practice or an outcome that does more good that is compassionate that has care at the heart and

[00:30:49] soul of it and that it's also looking at these wider opportunities to give back to a planet from which we have taken far too much but also to take care of people at the same time so it's very much grounds in that I fully recognize for a lot of people that it's about energy performance and materials but it also is about that it's not just about the material you choose but to me it's also about where that material comes from how the land is stewarded about the nature of the transaction

[00:31:19] and the activities along that supply chain so that's my definition of regenerative and sort of quite short but looking at the infrastructural piece in terms of infrastructure the infrastructure we currently operate within is degenerative we have a construction industry that's entirely dependent upon endlessly building new buildings and is heavily reliant upon fossil fuels on speculation and things like gentrification being normalized

[00:31:48] and the infrastructural piece that I look at is looking not just at the building scale so when I'm looking at a project yes I'm looking at the project but I'm also looking at beyond the boundary of that sort of site I'm looking at what is possible from how we source materials the material that we use and opening up opportunities for doing more of that so with clients if I'm doing reporting on carbon I'm doing recommendations

[00:32:18] on materials at the same time if I'm looking at aspirations on targets I'm always showing examples so as much as I'm communicating I'm always extending invitations towards what is regenerative if I'm showing you what the whole life carbon is of your building I'm also showing you what's possible in terms of doing better not in terms of saying you've not done well but in terms of saying we've shown this as possible

[00:32:49] would you like to give that a go and the infrastructural piece is also recognizing that lots of solutions that might be great on paper in terms of carbon might not be great in terms of impacts on the land and the impacts on people and there's recognizing that if we want to deliver sustainable outcomes through the built environment we need to be politically engaged we need to be engaging with culture

[00:33:18] we need to be learning with and from people we also need to be unlearning quite a lot but it's quite a big piece and I've had moments in time before starting the role where when you get hit by the scale of our infrastructure as a physical entity it is absolutely mind-blowing but when you start to look at it as a space for opportunities in terms of what are the benefits of us adapting our built environment for a changing

[00:33:47] climate in such a way that it creates jobs for generations because retrofit is not a one-off if we have a regenerative built environment there's going to be stewardship there's going to be maintenance cycles and lots of that sounds very technical and probably not what people have talked about in terms of regenerative design that often in architecture but it is looking at that wider stewardship of land and landscapes and our position in our local communities and the global community as well

[00:34:17] if that gives a bit

[00:34:49] more we can get down into a lot of scrutiny and be like is this really a regenerative project or is it just more sustainable or whatever which I think there's a place for that but what I'm hearing from you is it's much more about process and intention like your intentionality in terms of moving practices in a more regenerative way absolutely for me on a personal journey

[00:35:20] building physics like that was my bread and butter like I very much that was what I understood applying this to buildings looking at building performance looking at a carbon you could sequester in a building very much looking at if we're going to build we should definitely build from this because this is great but for me it's been a process of unlearning where it's not just been about we've got all these solutions just throw every single thing it's very much been a kind of realising that we

[00:35:50] have the capability to do this so for me an incredible point of learning is a book called eco-minimalism the antidote to eco-bling by Howard Liddell and Howard founded and ran Gaia Architects in Scotland and I've been incredibly fortunate to learn from lots of people that passed through his practice he has sadly passed away but his influence on practice was massive but in reading this book it was

[00:36:20] very much a case of I was going for it and I was like wait a minute this is decades plus ahead of its time we've already got we could be delivering benign non-toxic buildings we could be doing super low energy we could be designing with the landscape and this is not just in sort of like and then when we look to kind of more all sorts of different kind of cultures and how they respond to their landscape we can do this in so many incredible ways beyond the western ideology and canon of

[00:36:50] architecture that you don't get taught about thoroughly enough and it was in reading this book and then sort of I read Future Restorative by Martin Brown looking at the living building challenge and really digging into the idea of the regenerative and what really jumped out to me for that one book was that 40% of all the money any country spends on healthcare is directly because of its built environment and that absolutely blew my mind and then there was also alongside

[00:37:19] the 40% of carbon emissions come from the built environment and I was like if we understand this in our current paradigm and we are not responding to it this is not a design problem this is not a lack of tools this is a cultural piece this is a systemic and political problem that we have the technology and the knowledge and the wisdom and the means but we are not applying it and that's

[00:37:49] what became my kind of how do you bring that up in process very much as process and principles what I refer back to very often is I put just transition principles at the core of my work that's the the idea of the process that takes us to a decarbonised regenerative society is redistributing power and wealth and it's taking care of people it might be phasing out industries that are degenerative

[00:38:19] but it's shifting and creating opportunities and regenerative ones and it's the Climate Justice Alliance definitions about the process of how we get there as much as the destination and I've just found through the different activities I've done up and down the UK kind of projects to events to teaching the retrofit reimagined festival looking at all the things we know how to do but we're not doing them

[00:38:49] and we're watching kind of on our current trajectories the construction sector for the UK and EU 27 it's blowing its carbon budget next year and this didn't make a headline in the industry this was very much kind of like not even a whisper there was no hint of it at any form of architectural press I'd quote it all the time as this is where we are our context is that we have used up

[00:39:19] our fair share sometime in 2026 and it's very much you can look at those technical aspects like looking at the impacts you can get incredibly granular with carbon you can go down to the exact location of where something is sourced from or you can look at the processes as well and how are we going to how is every project that we do another iteration upon our work for us to be able to do more

[00:39:49] regenerative things next time so even if we don't get to do a living building challenge project every single time which would be it would be a dream to be able to say to local authorities everything we do this is feasible within our current paradigm but yeah that incredibly frustrating truth is at the moment the systems we are working within are not going to let us deliver regenerative outcomes without

[00:40:18] struggle and that's something I'm not seeing spoken about enough within the industry it's very much become a bit of a buzzword and it's an incredible call to arms like it is to say we need to do more good with our work fantastic I'm 150% on board but I'm also on board with being grounded in reality of the space that we work in and just being honest with that because if we don't engage

[00:40:48] beyond our practices there's always so far you can go within that paradigm within the available resources within the budget of a client within the resources you're able to allocate to a project within the resources available can I full stop and I'm really hoping to open up that wider discussion with this regenerative design and infrastructures

[00:41:18] piece it's the wider conversation but it is I am going to be talking at an event in Edinburgh next month about data and how we show it and I'm pretty good with graphs I'm very happy talking about them yes we do need those there's a place for those but there's also such a need to consider our process yeah that's great that's great I love that and I think from what you've said it seems

[00:41:47] like it is a framing and a terminology that gets people excited and motivated to do things more so than the typical sustainability approach of being very I don't know I think environmentalism in general I feel like the environmentalist dream is to just cease existing because then we'll have zero impact on the environment but that's just you know what we need to be thinking is a much more like

[00:42:16] I don't know reframing human activity in a way that it can coexist and have positive impacts and you know I think about all the ripple effects that built environment projects have on surrounding communities on the clients on the users can be much more than just reducing the impacts or having as little impact as possible it needs to be like rippling out into positive positive ripples do you find that as well that like you're seeing those ripples happen with

[00:42:46] the projects you're involved in yeah I'm even just to take and kind of flip I would say the environmentalist dream is definitely to come back into kind of balance and equilibrium rather than non-existence I would kind of rally against and say I would say the environmentalist dream is equilibrium of the natural world and I saw an incredible piece yesterday someone mentioning that biodiversity is infrastructure and that blew my mind it's like our natural world is already this incredibly

[00:43:16] intelligent unique infrastructure but to come back to the question I keep tangenting off but it's when I talked about regenerative resource propositions there was a lot of excitement because this was again for open kind of transparency when I'm preparing this for projects I am not always the outcomes I sat with the project team and I talked them through it and we had conversations back and forth

[00:43:46] and they were the people that took it so that one I may have done the ground work but the delivery and the conversations were had by a project team who were looking to push and there was an excitement and when on another project we had a client and he wanted their project has your current understanding of the circular economy and he said we're going to be honest not great but tell you what

[00:44:16] Scott's done quite a bit of teaching and has done a circular economy workshop in-house before would you like to do that so I took our circular economy workshop and redesigned it so it became half me explaining and half our client weaving the circular economy learning back into their sustainability visions so instead of me just coming in and throwing numbers and stats and graphs and kill nice pictures it's now participatory it's interactive and the hardest part of that

[00:44:46] workshop was deciphering the handwriting that is how excited people can get and it's incredible and it was my suggestion on the team I was like I know you want me to do explanations but I would love to actually talk to the client about this piece as well so not just where we think things are going but I'd love to take that extra time and to look at that and they got really excited it was a total joy and also

[00:45:16] there are quite fun moments of things like that when I'm in the sort of room things like that happen and the colleague looks and goes like this is different I wasn't expecting that part and when you said participatory I didn't think you're going to give everyone pens but it's lots of it's about facilitation and it's about holding space so another example of a role that an architectural studio can play that's regenerative is

[00:45:45] there was a fringe festival going on in Edinburgh and we looked at it and went what could we do that would engage people locally on different scales and I got asked if you could choose three things off the top of your head we know you probably have a couple ideas what would they be number one was looking at whole life carbon alongside engineers so what people collaborated with and number one was looking at whole estate wide decarbonisation and retrofit

[00:46:14] and the local authority and the community and institutional scales but then we did a just transition town hall so we probably did the most antithesis of architect thing of all time we did not give a presentation we were not a panellist we were the hosts so we hosted the local tenants union branches the local council adaptation team a charity on retrofit and some practitioners the Yala

[00:46:44] impacts are looking at regenerative practice with community design and we had this incredible town hall event saying what was happening in the local community about the just transition of our built environment and we had people came in from all different backgrounds and interests from the I'm an architect that's interesting to I live a couple of streets away and I didn't know this was here and we created a space for conversations that could not have happened

[00:47:14] otherwise and there was such a buzzing excitement and I got asked afterwards Scott was it your full intention to put the council in the same conversation as a tenants union on that one particular subject because if yes that was genius subconsciously yes thank you very much but it's it's the process and we created the space and we held the infrastructure for things to happen that could not have happened otherwise

[00:47:43] that were about that regenerative shift and you can take it even wider you can look at a wider scale an example that I know kind of hit me very recently all at once is if you're going to start to look at scale at what does a regenerative construction sector look like in the context of a just transition what would that practically look like so when we're looking the example I'm going to

[00:48:13] go for is timber and construction because it's very important that we use more natural materials and we sequester carbon but it's about the output and the technology and the sort of the process we use so if you look at timber and if we were to say right we want to build as much as possible from timber and let's just the 19th and 20th century thinking is right we centralize the infrastructure we go in for cross laminated timber above everything else we have one central hub everything

[00:48:43] comes into there we send it out that would be 20th century thinking that we just immediately say we know that this does the job we've seen it in practice it does great things I'm advocating for it before anyone gets angry I do not think it's a bad thing it's a good technology but if we were to say right that's going to create centralized jobs it's going to be quite a vulnerable supply chain in terms of climate change but if we were to say

[00:49:13] right what does a regenerative infrastructure look like that uses timber across the UK so if we actually look to examples like Plumberswoods by Gaia Architects and by the visitor centre that Archetype did for the Welsh forestry you can use a technology called brished apple brished apple is phenomenal it's an engineered mass timber technology that doesn't use glue you build up lamina or layers of timber and you use timber

[00:49:42] dowels into it to naturally join it and as it naturally expands it interlocks and it becomes one mass piece type of technology can use softwood timber that we have in greater abundance it doesn't take as long to grow and it does not need a mass centralised infrastructure it could be deployed in most joinery carpentry timber mills it could be deployed in flying factories on the Scottish islands

[00:50:12] where supply chains are quite hard to use in joining in joinery or in timber framing and expanding their skill set so that when they're not doing timber framing they could be doing this or you could be going into construction colleges and teaching a skill that can be taught in a construction college in a workshop on a small scale and teaching people how to build this technology that can be dispersed

[00:50:42] and distributed the kind of donut economics idea designed for distribution looking at it that way if we said right we're going to look at meeting our housing demand by dispersing our production of engineered timber by using this technology rather than centralising it and in terms of a just transition that's going to disperse the jobs it's going to kind of there's the terms of supply chain it's not going to be as long you can reduce the emissions in the supply chain

[00:51:12] you're not using the glues that cross-laminated timber requires that's a regenerative outcome if we were to say right how do we approach an industry using a material it's not the only way there will be circumstances say on the non-domestic scale where cross-laminated timber is absolutely the go-to but if we were to think about housing on domestic scale that's what a regenerative infrastructure could look like and it's about we're not going to move in that direction if

[00:51:41] we don't pause and have the conversations and make the time to actually look at how our industry is working today because in terms of planetary boundaries in terms of social and climate justice spatial justice it is not working for everyone and there's an incredible example from the enterprise centre that I saw before I joined archetype and it's now one that I use in teaching it's what I use when I'm talking about materials

[00:52:11] for the enterprise centre there was like a mapping exercise was carried out to see what are the locally abundant materials everything from kind of reeds to chalk to earth but not learn about this or who can we go to to carry out this work and that's what led to the kind of incredibly distinctive and familiar thatched cladding that was developed with master thatchers in Norfolk

[00:52:41] and that technology would not have been deployed if there hadn't been a pause and a consideration of what exists in the local area and economy and how do we nourish that with what we're doing and yes the building has performed beyond the industry kind of ideas of what buildings can do for 10 years solid it turns 10 this year which is going to be a fantastic occasion but it does all the things on paper in terms of the numbers but when

[00:53:11] it comes to what it did in terms of materials that's regenerative and that's really exciting and well it's exciting for me and materials are one of my favourite things I will get excited about them for decades but if we just keep doing what we're doing and then put the carbon lens on it and say right what within our current ideas of technology and distribution and infrastructural centralisation slash decentralisation

[00:53:41] what is the best thing for this because I do not think the solution is every country having one centralised cross-laminated timber factory and going in for kind of plantations of forestry no I think that the alternative to that is to be supporting agroforestry projects and local skills through the dispersal of a decentralised infrastructure that uses timber differently

[00:54:09] and that's the wider piece that could be so exciting and could really change lives we could be taking the industry to new places we could be going to places that were left behind by deindustrialisation in the 70s 80s and 90s and bringing industries that meet their housing needs that also take care of them without using materials that are bad for their health and without that process

[00:54:38] and without giving people the space to imagine that different industry we're not going to get there and the part of my job and my role where I have that resource time to look at strategy so I'm working on strategy but whilst I'm looking on strategy I sort of get background tasks in my head as I think as I'm working I've always got these kind of I'm always kind of adding to my own sort of I keep a list of regenerative materials or approaches

[00:55:08] or different ways of using things and it's always kind of building up that resource that when someone says right we've got a client who's very interested in using timber differently I'll be like right I have seven different ways five of them are cladding two of them are two of them are engineered timber and all of them can be done in ways that could be very exciting rather than just saying right we're going to have a head

[00:55:38] of sustainability whose job is to do project reviews and occasionally write a report for us it's creating the space and the time to imagine the industry otherwise and to identify the emergent possibilities and the work that we do by nourishing regenerative processes it's it's so interesting I mean it really gets my mind thinking about how the world's going to change in the coming decades

[00:56:07] and I think you know there are people talking about the inevitable relocalization and regionalization of economies as we basically the kind of how hyper-connected and globalized the world is now really only possible because of oil more or less and having a sort of centralized energy system that is very easily you know transportable as we you know oil is in an inevitable decline

[00:56:37] whether it's you know in time to prevent dangerous climate change or not but by the end of the century there's going to be a lot less fossil fuel in our energy system energy systems towards renewable energy become much more localized just because that's in their nature and it's interesting to think about how our resources materials might become relocalized as well as part as part of one of the things I read recently was in the sort of medieval and late medieval period in Europe

[00:57:07] most European cities had a very well stewarded forest surrounding the city because it was a resource that people were going into to get building supplies timber firewood foraging you know hunting animals it was this hyper local you know source of resource and people managed it over centuries in a sustainable way now we did also hunt you know beavers and wolves to extinction and lynx and all that but you know if we think about how we could do

[00:57:36] it slightly differently coexisting with these other animals you know there's an interesting model there for how our sort of resource flows for cities are so globalized and so stretched out and if it's inevitable that they become more relocalized does that mean us really that we're growing and stewarding you know in our local area and you know on your next architecture project you're not necessarily going to crack that but it's like

[00:58:06] thinking about the way the world is going and how our projects fit in is really fascinating yeah on that kind of note as well I from kind of personal experience and just kind of reflection the way we talk about the circular economy if we change that that could be a portal concept not just for project level but that could be infrastructure level change because the way the way that I teach it and I was very fortunate that I had to the opportunity and I was explaining the circular

[00:58:36] economy to an agricultural college and I'm very fortunate to have a friend who's an agroforester so and speaking about it is like this is natural in farming just do not go for any of the kind of over complicated technological talk about inputs and outputs and immediately click it was just but also when we're talking about a circular economy I think we need to be very very careful because there's the idea that we just talk about resource flows and that

[00:59:06] completely not just dehumanizes but it takes the life out of those ideas so sort of the way that I like to explain it is the circular economy and construction is not just about resource flows it's about reconnecting construction to agriculture and forestry in reciprocal relationships and that's it's looking at where materials come from but also how is that land stewarded and if we're going to like relocalize materials

[00:59:35] it's not just about timber it's about earth and about kind of urban materials and I've had clients get excited because when they wanted to use urban materials and I said okay can you simply keep can we test the clay on site and if it's a go all of the excavations we have to do we're going to keep and make our own clay plaster and they're like we can do that I was like oh this will be fun but it's it's getting

[01:00:05] another thing is like the experience of materials is transformative so to see regeneratively sourced materials in practice is very very very very different than watching a webinar series or so I was if we rewind to about six years ago before I'd kind of before the Anthropocene Architecture School started before I worked for Archetype I was a student and I was incredibly interested in learning about materials it wasn't in my kind of course

[01:00:35] I was going outside of the course to look for opportunities to build but I came across the Scottish Ecological Design Association and that kind of the enthusiasm was it wasn't just encouraged it was nourished to the point that when I said I'd love to learn about this the response from someone was a really throwaway comment of have you ever thought of pulling together an event about it I was like no actually no never done that so through the architecture and design Scotland had the materials library

[01:01:05] at the lighthouse in Glasgow so the lighthouse is this Charles Rennie McIntosh building it was Scotland's centre for architecture and design until it sadly was closed but through CEDA and in collaboration with the with architecture and design Scotland's materials library over two years I pulled together and hosted two material seminars so one was on straw bale construction one was on earth during the straw bale construction one there's an architect and now a good friend who's I'll name drop him for fun because he's been a very great inspiration

[01:01:35] so Sam Foster gave this talk about the piggery which was a house built from straw bales and in the design process he took the clients to experience what it was like to be in buildings built from these materials and that had a really transformative effect on their ideas of what they wanted or how to be built from so if we then come back to 2024 last year and we're looking at archetype we're supporting civic square looking at their public

[01:02:04] square demonstrator and when we were kind of looking at what these materials what are the possibilities my proposition was we need to visit the enterprise centre and the intopia building so we can see a retrofit in the terms of what you want but also so you can experience what it's like to be in a space that's surrounded and built from and made from these materials and the joy from people and you see it and it's not just like this is a photograph

[01:02:34] but you can actually see the difference in people and the curiosity and the difference in how people respond into a space and another kind of concept I've used in my teaching but I also now use in kind of taking clients to places is you turn that into a classroom that building that site everywhere becomes a learning resource a classroom so you can through taking our clients and their neighbours to the enterprise centre we demonstrated not just the materials we talked about

[01:03:03] climatic design and future adaptation documentation and reusing materials and testing materials and we use the building to just talk through that and I think if architects were to do that more and to kind of to make it a very normal thing to take your clients to buildings where you have demonstrated this before and to be kind of make a day of it this is not just a get in and get out keep it to two hours get everyone back at the office fast as you can

[01:03:32] but take the time to really experience that because I think for a lot of people we currently we talk about passive house a lot I'd say most people in the UK have not experienced what it's like to be inside a passive house building there's a noticeable difference so we if we're going to disrupt the processes of how they are an incredibly powerful tool could be a tour and it's it's so it's just it's not

[01:04:01] radical it's so playful it's so soft it's a gentle it's a soft skill it's taking people to let them experience that possible future and I think in that relocalization of our infrastructure looking at energy as well through construction we can reduce the necessary size of substations to speed up that energy transition through built high building performance and

[01:04:30] that's possible that's being done that's being demonstrated that that can be done and I think that if we simply look at buildings and don't engage in the wider conversation on infrastructure we've got we've got kind of solutions to problems that would go unresolved otherwise and if we if we keep if the imaginary says we have to entirely replace the energy demand that we use under fossil fuels with renewables that's

[01:05:00] an incredibly tough uphill struggle but if we say no it's not going to happen but if we say that if we instigate like like society-wide demand reduction through our buildings and retrofits and new builds and fruit we reduce the size of the infrastructure we need to replace we have a lighter impact we need to use less resources we need to generate less it's the maths is very very simple and it's

[01:05:29] yeah it's that the infrastructural piece where again my job doesn't sit within traditional architect boundaries because these are discussions that I've like I'm talking for I do some work supporting fuel poverty campaigners as well and I talk about the potential role of the built environment alongside energy policy not in isolation but as complementary pieces I'm enjoying this

[01:05:59] conversation immensely we're over an hour so I'm going to ask is there anything else we want to touch on before we before we wrap up is there anything we sort of missed not off the top of my head I don't think we have but I would also just like to say that thank you very very very much again for the opportunity to delve into this because I mean the more time that we take as an industry to have these conversations and the difficult ones as much as

[01:06:28] the exciting ones as much as the ones where it's really exciting to show off the new material but also the ones that saying we tried this on a project and it didn't work and I think the more safe spaces that we have to iterate together and to kind of collaborate and share that's going to make the difference I think it has to be we do need to look at regenerative design on an infrastructural level

[01:06:58] because in isolation it is incredibly difficult to do regenerative design there is no part of the natural world that developed in isolation we look at that wider planetary system it was co-evolution co-evolving co-benefits we look at I think as a final sort of ending piece if we go back to the kind of the imaginary and forestry a few decades ago was that in the woods and forests

[01:07:27] and woodland trees must be in competition with one another like they must be but as we look back we're seeing the indigenous knowledges that told us the natural world was interconnected and reciprocal beneficial relationships is actually true and it was the cultural imaginary of neoliberal capitalism effectively has changed how we look at fundamentally everything and

[01:07:57] there's going to be a lot of unlearning but the possibilities and doing that unlearning and having these conversations in creating roles like mine that are very different and on paper sound like a sound a bit ad hoc and I like it can be a one pager but the more time that we do this and if we just recognize that we cannot as designers deliver regenerative design alone and that's something that I would like to extend as an invitation it's not a

[01:08:26] criticism in any way shape or form it's just that if we look out at the wider systems in the world we are always going to duplicate struggle until we change that wider infrastructure and I invite everyone to have those conversations with your colleagues have them with your friends have them with your clients and your boss just across sector those are the ones we need to be having and it's about process as much or as more so

[01:08:55] than the technology and the materials at play that's great that is awesome that's such a good point to end on thank you Scott I'm going to make a little book recommendation in case I know you're I know you're a reader like me if you haven't read eco-responsive environments I did a I did an interview with two of the authors a couple of months ago and I'm working behind the scenes with them on something that I'll announce soon or maybe we will have announced by the time this comes

[01:09:25] out but for people who are working more at the master plan urban design level that's such a great book to look at a bigger systemic perspective they talk a lot about working interdisciplinarily and you know the way that we you know settlements sit within a wider ecological system the kind of things that you don't get taught in school more more or less so yeah I love that one as well and I'm going to check out the books you recommended as well there is one that I would absolutely

[01:09:54] recommend just as a sort of to build off of the environmentalist kind of point earlier incredible book called the nutmeg's curse parables from a planet in crisis by Amitav Ghosh and I would thoroughly thoroughly recommend that anyone everyone reads it and passes it on it was very emergent because it was on my list of something that I needed to read and I went down to do a project

[01:10:23] in our Hereford studio and a colleague had just out of nowhere said I read this book and I thought you might enjoy it on the train ride home and it might be something that will like resonate with you and it's probably the first book I've read on a train where it's probably been visible to people around me I've just been like so shocked and I've learned so much and like my horizon has just kind of extended yeah and things that I had things I had heard

[01:10:52] before were put on just even more clear context and really unpacked in a way that I think all of us really need to sit with about decolonization and the colonial roots of the climate crisis that's a book that I definitely think is absolutely fundamental reading because it will extend your horizons in an incredibly healthy way and it's something that I think that in terms of book recommendations it just kind of shot straight

[01:11:21] to the top of mind yeah that's that's the power of a good book and hopefully a good podcast for some people it puts puts into words things that are maybe floating around in your head they haven't connected together yet and gives you clarity and says oh that's what that is so yeah super helpful thank you so much Scott I really appreciate it where can people find out more about you and your work if you want to find out more about kind of the work I'm doing with archetype you can go

[01:11:50] onto our website and if you want to find out about my work kind of broadly you can look at Instagram for the Anthropocent Architecture School you can also find archetype there you can also find the architecture fringe there as part of the architecture fringe which is between the 6th and 22nd of June there's a kind of international open call currently open so if anyone wants to do something anywhere in the world relating to reciprocity which is our provocation this year that would be fantastic and there's

[01:12:20] also the ways to end on books there's the Anthropocent Architecture School Library on Instagram which signposts people towards a huge amount of resources but not just books also listening and watching material because everyone learns a little bit differently and it's good to have some kind of diversity in there as well