Principal's Corner When I was an undergraduate I went to a talk about a book that had come out a few years earlier: Biomimicry. I was blown away by Janine Benyus and her thesis that nature has been designing and refining for 3.8 billion years. Nature is our oldest teacher, and if we can learn from its principles, we can make what we need without compromising the health of ourselves or the rest of life. The idea resonated deeply because it gave language to something I had felt for a long time but didn’t know how to name. Benyus often says, “life creates conditions conducive to life.” It is a simple and deeply important measure for design. The talk encouraged me to read the book and it became one of “those books”, the kind that I’d bring up at parties, work into my papers and changed my trajectory. A few years later, in my graduate thesis, I began experimenting with systems thinking and ecosystem design: What if buildings, land, economy and health could reinforce one another? Could an urban site move from industrial blight toward community health and local wealth?  Josh's copy I’ve kept asking those kind of questions ever since. More and more, I return to one: What does the site already know? The best first move is often observation.
Seeing the Bigger PictureThat instinct—to observe and learn before we intervene—is at the heart of biomimicry. A forest doesn’t have an architect or CEO. A river doesn’t have an engineer. A mycelial network does not have a project manager. Living systems are emergent and continuously create structures and relationships that are adaptive, resilient and efficient. Nature rarely optimizes for the shortest path; it optimizes for continued life. Biomimicry asks us to go beyond using nature to solve a single problem. It asks us to look for the potential already present in a form, process or system: what relationships could become stronger, what resources could serve more than one purpose, and what new value could emerge when the parts are considered together.  Credit: Photo: Manu M Nair/Shutterstock;Brocken Inaglory/Wikimedia Commons Over billions of years, nature has developed ways to capture energy, manage water, use materials efficiently, adapt to changing conditions and recover from disturbance. Waste becomes input: a fallen tree becomes habitat; leaves become nutrients; water is absorbed, stored and released; sunlight becomes the foundation of food webs. So what happens when our built environments begin with the same understanding? Here are just a few inspiring examples of how biomimicry is already in our lives. The shape of this desert beetle’s shell is adapted to capture water. This is helping us create better materials and technologies for people in similar climates without using chemicals or energy.  Credit: Photo: cpreiser000,Stocksnapper/Shutterstock A famous example of biomimicry - invented well before anyone had the term for it - is velcro, a highly reusable, strong, adhesive system that doesn’t use chemicals but form to lock things together. Eastgate Centre, an office building in Harare, Zimbabwe, is modeled on termite mounds which use no mechanical systems for heating and cooling. This project uses 90% less energy than a traditional building leveraging large chimneys that pull in air to convect throughout the building.  Credit: Photo: fritz16/Shutterstock; David Brazier/Wikimedia Commons The Thread That BindsBiomimicry is sometimes misunderstood as making something that looks like nature. A building might resemble a shell, a roof a leaf, or a facade a honeycomb. Those can be compelling, but the deeper opportunity is understanding how nature works—and what it can teach us about the places we depend on every day. Biomimicry can operate through form, process or system. A leaf's shape isn’t just interesting to look at, it is critical to help it capture energy, exchange gases and manage water. A termite mound offers lessons in regulating temperature through its structure and airflow, without mechanical systems. These natural strategies can inspire ways to make our own projects more comfortable, resourceful and responsive to their surroundings. At the systems level, the lesson becomes even more relevant to our lives. This is where biomimicry connects to mutualism: beneficial relationships in which organisms contribute to one another's ability to thrive.  https://helpfulprofessor.com/collectivism-vs-individualism/ Think about your home, workplace or neighborhood. Each depends on a larger network of people, resources, infrastructure and natural systems. The health of one affects the health of the others. A healthy landscape, for example, doesn't just support plants and wildlife. It can help keep your neighborhood cooler, manage flooding and create places for people to connect. Yet we often make decisions as though these things are separate. We consider a building without its landscape, stormwater as something to get rid of, or waste as the end of a material's usefulness. What if we could meet several needs through a single thoughtful decision? A landscape can manage water while creating habitat and meaningful outdoor space. Daylight and natural ventilation can reduce energy demand while making the spaces we occupy more comfortable. Existing buildings can be adapted to serve new purposes while preserving their materials, history and community connections. These relationships matter because their benefits extend beyond any one building or property. They can lower operating costs, conserve resources, improve everyday experiences and support healthier communities. When we design for relationships rather than isolated solutions, we create opportunities for both people and the places they depend on to thrive.  https://architectureprize.com/winners/winner.php?id=4475%20 What This Looks Like in Practice at TikunGood design begins by learning about the place before designing anything. We start by understanding the nested systems of a site—people, land, buildings, infrastructure, regulations, resources, and relationships—and how they affect one another. That thinking has become the foundation of our front-end pre-design framework: helping clients move from an ambitious idea toward clarity, alignment, and a concept before committing significant time and money to design. It builds confidence, momentum and impact for a team to enter schematic design ready for success. When our client, the Living Earth Center, came to us with a big vision for transforming a rural property into a thriving community resource, the first question wasn’t what should we design? It was what needs to be understood first to make this vision possible? We started with place: listening to the people, studying the land, and investigating the existing buildings, infrastructure, and regulatory conditions. What we uncovered began to shape the project’s priorities. Understanding the condition of an existing barn helped us prioritize stabilization and where it best fit in the phasing of the project. Investigating water, septic, and land-use requirements revealed critical decisions that needed to be resolved before committing to growth and more. Instead of jumping into design, we helped the Living Earth Center understand what they had, what stood in their way, and what needed to happen first. That work transformed an ambitious vision into a phased roadmap. The client gained a clearer understanding of immediate costs, potential risks, and future opportunities—information they could use to make decisions, align their board, plan for funding, and determine what came next. The process revealed possibilities beyond the buildings themselves, from managing water as a resource to strengthening connections between food production, education, ecology, and community. This is what learning from living systems looks like in our practice. We investigate relationships, respond to what we discover, and adapt the path as conditions change and we expect that to adapt as we continue to learn more once the organization begins to move into the site. The result is more than a design concept. It is a clearer path forward—one that helps clients invest wisely, protect what makes a place valuable, and create the conditions for people and ecosystems to thrive. Clarity → Purpose → Confidence  The clarity is built using stakeholder engagement, reviewing client visioning, discussing potentials and more. Alignment → Action → Momentum  The alignment is achieved by bringing priorities, stakeholders, resources, and actions into a shared direction. Concept → Potential → Impact  The concept is built by translating that clarity and alignment into a coherent vision for how the place can work, feel, and evolve. An InvitationWhen I first encountered biomimicry, it changed the way I saw the world. Nature became more than something to admire or protect. It became something to learn from.
My invitation to you is to look at a familiar place with that same curiosity. Notice where water flows, where people gather, and what relationships make that place thrive. What might become possible if we worked with those relationships rather than around them? The truth is that we can’t thrive at the expense of the world around us. We can make choices that contribute to the wellbeing of people, places, and the living systems we depend on. That idea has stayed with me since I first read Janine Benyus's Biomimicry. If it sparks your curiosity, I encourage you to pick up the book. It might just change the way you see the world, too.
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Principal's Corner This year marks the 100th anniversary of my family stewarding land in New Hampshire. That place was deeply meaningful to my maternal grandparents, both immigrants. It became a respite from New York City, a community of artists and like-minded friends, and eventually a family heirloom. It was my first example of what it meant to care for and respect a place over time. I loved running through the woods, exploring the nearby stream, and spending time with my grandparents and their friends, nearly all of whom came there for refuge—to be in the country and away from the congestion of the Eastern Seaboard. The land became part of our family story and eventually a final resting place. My grandparents are buried there now, along with other family members, including my father. My dad, a historian and adopted Dakota Sioux, taught us that we were only the current stewards of that place. It belonged to others before us, and one day it would be cared for by others after us. It deserved respect, attention, and care. My connection to nature became inseparable from my connection to the community. We recently celebrated those first 100 years with a gathering of family and friends, telling stories and sharing the experiences of generations of people tethered to one another through that place. One of the most prevalent themes was how that spot connected people to nature. Seeing The Bigger PictureStewardship can sound simple when we think of it as taking care of land, managing the yard or buildings on it. But the more closely we look at a place, the more we uncover its connections to the people, systems, and natural world around it. A piece of land is part of a watershed. A building is part of a neighborhood. A neighborhood is part of a city. People, histories, cultures, soil, plants, animals, and infrastructure interact within larger systems. We may draw boundaries around them for practical reasons, but the relationships extend beyond those lines. This changes what stewardship asks of us. If we focus only on the thing directly in front of us, we can miss what it depends on and what depends on it. We can create an efficient building while overlooking the systems that supply its materials. Improve a property while weakening its relationship to the surrounding neighborhood. Create a beautiful space without asking whether it strengthens the social and ecological systems that make the place healthy. Regenerative design asks us to widen the lens. We are not simply caring for something outside ourselves. We are participating in systems that already exist. The question becomes not only, “What do we want this place to provide?” but “What relationship are we creating with this place, the people around it, and those who will come after us?” That is the shift from stewardship as maintenance to stewardship as a relationship. The Thread That Binds For September, that thread that binds is reciprocity. Reciprocity is a recurring theme because it encourages us to notice what moves in both directions. What do we receive, and what do we return? What does a place give to a community, and what does the community give back? How can a project create value that extends beyond the person who paid for it or the day construction is complete? Nature offers powerful reminders of this relationship. Living systems are not collections of isolated parts. They depend on exchange, cycles and interdependence. Reciprocity does not mean every exchange is equal or immediate. It means recognizing that we are participants rather than extractors. This matters in the built environment because every project enters an existing web of relationships. The question is whether we strengthen those relationships, weaken them, or create conditions for something healthier and greater to emerge. Community itself can be understood as an ecosystem. Social connection, mutual care, shared leadership, restorative practices, and dignity function as infrastructure just as meaningfully as buildings and streets. Nothing exists alone. What This Looks Like in Practice at TikunFor us, stewardship and reciprocity begin before the first line is drawn. We start by trying to understand the larger system a project belongs to. Who is connected to this place? What histories are already present? What ecological systems are operating here? What relationships could be strengthened? What constraints or opportunities might not be visible if we look only at the property itself? That can mean ecosystem mapping, early planning, community engagement, regenerative frameworks, or simply slowing down enough to listen before deciding. Our role is often to help clients clarify not just what they want to build, but why it matters, what it is connected to, and how it might contribute to the health of the larger system. It also means treating a place as a partner rather than a blank slate. We look for what a site is already doing well, what it can support, and what the project can contribute in return. We look for opportunities where one decision can support multiple outcomes: ecological function, community connection, health, resilience, beauty, and long-term value. This is part of what makes regenerative work different from simply reducing harm. The goal is not only to make a project less damaging. It is to ask how the project can become part of a healthier relationship between people, place, and the systems around them.  Case Study: Pangea World TheaterPangea World Theater’s Center for Peace and Justice offers a powerful example of what it means to think beyond a building. Tikun has supported Pangea since early planning and feasibility began in 2020, then serving as conceptual designers through three different incarnations of the project and now continuing as regenerative design consultant and Living Future Accredited facilitator. The vision is not simply a theater. Pangea imagines an urban organism in which the building and its culture co-create a purposeful future and work alongside other “organisms” to strengthen a healthy, self-determining community. That larger vision has shaped how the project has developed.  Pangea team  Diagrammatic Example Phase 1, fundraising underway now, will begin with renovation of an existing building to create a 50-seat rehearsal and performance space along with production and temporary offices. Phase 2 expands into the adjacent open lot with a 200-plus-seat flexible black box theater, community space, shared courtyard, and spaces supporting BIPOC art and wellness. The project seeks to model environmental, economic, and social equity while strengthening its connections to Minneapolis’s Longfellow neighborhood. Tikun’s work has included helping Pangea navigate regenerative goals, Living Building Challenge aspirations, planning, feasibility, and the practical decisions required to move that vision forward. What makes Pangea especially relevant to this month’s theme is that the project is not understood as an isolated object. Interdependence is part of Pangea’s DNA. The building is an extension of the organization. The organization is connected to artists and the community. The site is connected to the larger neighborhood. The design is connected to environmental and social responsibility. And the long-term vision depends on partnerships extending far beyond the project itself. The building becomes an expression of the larger ecosystem. Learn more about the project and our efforts here. Help support the project’s Capital Campaign at the Pangea website here. An InvitationStewardship asks us to care for what has been entrusted to us. Interdependence reminds us that we are never caring for something in isolation. Reciprocity asks us to consider what energy and resources move in both directions. Nothing exists alone. This month, we invite you to look at a place you care about and widen the lens.
What does this place depend on to thrive? Who and what is connected to it? What does the place give to the people around it and what are we giving back? The places we shape become part of larger stories, systems, and lives that extend beyond our own. Regenerative design gives us an opportunity to participate in those relationships with greater care and intention. |
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