Writing an irresistible narrative about people and place
A reflection on Melbourne's Enlightened Development Symposium
How can development be a source of health and transformation? How can we open up to an awareness of place as a living being? How can Melbourne embrace the regenerative development story inspiring the global property industry?
These were some of the radical questions explored by a diverse group of developers, investors, designers, planners and heads of government at Melbourne’s 2018 Enlightened Development Symposium.
The gathering, hosted by Gilbert Rochecouste of Village Well, was organised as part of Melbourne’s first ever Place Week. The symposium was carefully curated to surface a diversity of voices from Melbourne’s development community. This included Daryl Browning, Chief Executive Officer of ISPT, who challenged us to face up to the realities of our broken and exploitative development culture and why it’s important we work together to shift it.
Other standout local contributors included Julie Edwards, Chief Executive Officer of Jesuit Social Services, who spoke beautifully about our innate interconnectedness and the importance of using holistic development approaches. James Legge, Founding Director of Six Degrees Architects shared inspiring reflections on the Nightingale projects and how a shift in beliefs, principles and processes has fundamentally transformed the way they develop. Lachlan Cameron of The GPT Group, Narelle Hutchins from AMP Capital and Stuart Moseley from Victorian Planning Authority also provided valuable contributions to the deep dialogue.
While there was an amazing local turnout, the lead host and international catalyst for the day was Bill Reed of Regenesis. Bill is a globally recognised practitioner in regenerative development. His work “centres on creating and implementing a whole and living-systems design process.” Over the course of the day, Bill invited us to work together to collectively examine what it means to develop in a way that works with life’s innate capacity to regenerate.
What is a whole and living systems approach to development?
“The major problems of the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way people think.” — Gregory Bateson
This image of Bills summarises the different ways we tend to approach development. The key stages can be summarised as follows;
- Conventional — Meeting societies minimum standards for environmental and social protection, or as Bill puts it, “acting one step above the law”. It includes complying with laws, regulations and building codes.
- Green — Voluntarily going beyond minimum benchmarks to minimise negative impacts on society and the environment (e.g Green Star and NABERS).
- Restorative — Developments that stand to make the world a better place (such as Net Positive and Living Building projects). These developments strive to be ‘good’, rather than only being ‘less bad’? Moving beyond mitigating negative footprints, to making positive handprints.
- Regenerative — This is where Bill’s presence on the day was so valuable. He challenged us to think about how we can move beyond these progressively better, but limited approaches and practically work with the living wholeness of our developments. Working with living wholes — where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts — is the work of regenerative development.
From working with parts to working with wholes
How might we practically do regenerative work in a developmental context? Bill suggests we start doing this work by radically shifting our beliefs, principles and processes about what development is before we begin doing any design work.
When we shift our beliefs about what development is, such as making the transformative shift from treating place as a resource to exploit to recognising place as a living being with a unique essence, it fundamentally changes the way we go about design.
To bring these transformative shifts into our development projects, Bill shared this simple yet powerful framework to guide us. Before jumping into design and development, Bill suggests we take time to come to know the unique living wholes we are working with, and establish an appropriate set of beliefs, principles & processes to guide our work. Its only when we design and develop from a sense of the whole that we can truly work with whole living systems.
During the symposium, we worked with this process, sharing our experiences and perspectives on what enlightened development means in each of our unique contexts. This led to a deep dialogue about how we could bring this way of designing and developing to life in Melbourne.
A personal reflection
My first whole living systems aha moment came in 2014 while working as a sustainable design consultant. For most of my career I believed sustainability was a “technical” problem to be solved. As such, I would help my clients design energy efficient systems, reduce their water consumption and use responsibly sourced materials. I thought I was doing my bit, until I discovered Bill’s work and it triggered a transformative shift in how I support my clients with design and development.
For the past 4 years, I’ve been developing my capacity to do regenerative work together with a small community of practitioners in Melbourne. Up until this event, we’ve felt a bit like the crazy guy dancing on the hill, hoping a few progressive developers would dare to come and dance with us. But alas, the opportunities have been few and far between.
However, at this gathering, I felt like something profound shifted. All of a sudden, here we all were, with Melbourne’s big name developers, investors, designers and planners, having practical conversations about how we could do regenerative work in Melbourne. I had a growing sense that many in the room saw this as an important capacity to develop.
The moment that really hit home for me was when we authored and shared purpose statements for shifting the beliefs, principles and processes that ground our work. Here are a few examples. I’m sure you’ll agree they’re radically transformative.
“To create thriving places in a way that includes and connects so that we can all find purpose and be enriched by an evolving legacy for all.”
“To do holistic engagement in teams and communities using participatory processes in a way that creates thriving living environments so that we are in harmony with planetary boundaries.”
“To plan and build profitable, affordable and sustainable housing in large quantities in a way that transforms people’s attitudes and delivers dividends back to the community, so that the gap between the privileged and the under privileged becomes narrower and people love where they live.”
“To imagine and create places in a way that enables all stakeholders to thrive and live happier and healthier lives so the we can realise a regenerative future.”
Overall, I left the day feeling like our diverse group had generated a compelling sense of shared purpose and I’m really excited to see where all of this energy will take us.
Want to transform your organisations development story?
Get in touch if this is something you believe is important. Melbourne has a growing community of practitioners who would love to support you with bringing regenerative development capacities to your organisation.
