Towards Regenerative Sustainability in the Built Environment: Unpacking International Precedent Case Studies
Marjan Rafiei1, Paola Boarin1, Alessandro Premier1
- Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland
Published in Proceedings of the International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Built Environment (SASBE 2024), edited by Ali GhaffarianHoseini, Amirhosein GhaffarianHoseini, Farzad Rahimian and Mahesh Babu Purushothaman. Springer Nature, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, volume 591, 2025, pages 1540 to 1549. DOI 10.1007/978-981-96-4051-5_146.
Abstract
In recent decades, the sustainability approach has provided valuable improvements to the built environment. Nonetheless, experts agree that the current sustainability paradigm, rooted in a mechanistic worldview, is not enough to address the rapid pace, expansive scale, and urgency of global climate emergencies, suggesting that its efficacy has reached a limit. In response to this urgent need, the concept of regenerative design and development has recently emerged as a promising alternative in the built environment, seeking to reconnect human efforts with nature in a cooperative and co-evolutionary relationship to enhance the adaptive capacity of the built environment and add value to the entire living system. This relatively new concept in the built environment remains largely theoretical, with limited implementation studies primarily focusing on individual buildings and indoor environments, predominantly in educational and commercial settings. This paper aims to bridge the gap in the literature by exploring the real-world implementation of regenerative design and development in the built environment through a comprehensive review of existing international precedent case studies to critically analyse and identify the challenges in implementing regenerative sustainability worldwide. This research employs a qualitative approach, including comparing international precedent case studies. The results can contribute to a better understanding of the current state of regenerative sustainability practices, shedding light on factors contributing to their limited uptake and identifying potential pathways towards a more regenerative built environment.
Keywords
Session
Presented in Track C, Friday 8 November 2024, 11:00 to 13:00, room WG 1001, Auckland University of Technology. Session chair Dr Funmilayo Ebun Rotimi.
How to Cite
Rafiei, M., Boarin, P., & Premier, A. (2025). Towards Regenerative Sustainability in the Built Environment: Unpacking International Precedent Case Studies. In A. GhaffarianHoseini, A. GhaffarianHoseini, F. Rahimian, & M. B. Purushothaman (Eds.), Proceedings of the International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Built Environment (SASBE 2024) (Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering, Vol. 591, pp. 1540–1549). Springer Nature Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-4051-5_146
About the Conference
Presented at SASBE 2024, the International Conference on Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, held in Auckland from 7 to 9 November 2024 and chaired by Professors Ali and Amirhosein GhaffarianHoseini, founders of GDI Academy. The version of record is published by Springer Nature; this page is the conference archive record kept by GDI Academy.