Regenerative Design approaches to material resourcing are often considered ‘niche’, at the ‘fringes of design culture’ and therefore not available to everyone. ‘Nature-net-gain’ design and making methods can help support wild habitats but can also create built environments that are restorative for human users - Therefore such approaches should be available to all citizens including users within the social housing sector.

Our project is creating a pioneering ‘regenerative retrofit’ and ‘show home’ social house fitted out with innovative objects and ecological experiences that connect inhabitants to the myriad other species dwelling in the landscape from where its’ materials are sourced.

The ‘Wild House’ will house co-design, prototype and user test products augmented with playful, sensorial technologies that ‘bring to life’ the relationships between everday, material things and the wider natural world from which they are derived. This interconnected network between people, products and the nature of place we are calling an ‘Ecology of Things’ (EoT).

The ‘Wild House’ EoT is located within the UK’s ONLY urban Biosphere region and will give agency to everyday people to co-define regerenerative futures that better connect people and wider nature.

The ‘Wild House’ team comprises internationally renowned arts, science and technology expertise and collaborative approaches that positively impact human-nature communities and connections in the UK and overseas. We collaborate through the Centre of Arts and Wellbeing at The University of Brighton, the Community21 research group and The Sussex Digital Humanities Lab at The University of Sussex.

Nick Gant has led numerous projects with ‘hard-to-reach’ community participation, built-environment planning and circular economy research in the UK and overseas through acclaimed, co-designed objects, maker-spaces and ‘digi-tools’. Recent research led to new understandings of the direct relationship between making and identifiable restorative impacts on habitats in the UK and Indonesia. He is the Co-Director of The Centre of Arts and Health and founder of acclaimed social and sustainable design research group Community21 (.org)

Alice Eldridge is Professor of Sonic Systems at the University of Sussex, joint Director of Sussex Digital Humanities Lab, co-director of the Experimental Music Technologies Lab, Fellow of the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme and founder of the Eco-listening group. As a pioneering voice in the art, science and technology of Ecoacoustics, she publishes scientific papers validating and innovating computational methods for acoustic ecological monitoring and creative technologies for nature connection.

James Tooze is an expert in distributed manufacture and an experienced product and furniture designer and has contributed to leading research programmes that seek to reconcile human/nature connectivity and Ecological Citizenship. James has co-researched and co-published for The My Naturewatch project (Phillips et al, 2019) and research advancing knowledge of multi-local and distributed networks of manufacture (Tooze et al, 2014).

Soundcamp CIC are an arts and ecology cooperative that design and build interactive transmission ecologies from DIY broadcasting devices, public sound and radio projects. They have delivered projects that have included many thousands of particpants across countries and continents as a means to forge collaborative community engagement, education and understanding of the natural world.

The team are connected an established network of designers, makers, technologists, ecologists, NGO's, communities, charities and industry collaborators in the UK and overseas. The project will draw on a thsi network as a measn to co-design what ecological citizenship may mean in the context of social housing.

Ecology is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment; it seeks to understand the vital connections between plants and animals and the world around them (ESA).

The Wild House project will create networked technologies to augment natural products with audio and visual information in the creation of an “ecology-of-things”.

Using sensory networks to playfully connect between products and the originating habitats of the materials they are derived from. Connecting people and nature-based making via technology, may seem jarring, but has a solid evidence-base and chimes with our location in an urban UNESCO Biosphere – a designation that challenges experimentation in ways to live harmoniously with nature. As prescient environmentalist Rachel Carson wrote: Yet in the UK urban wildlife is so depleted that people lack opportunity, leading to nature deprivation in 1 in 5 households in the UK (Friends of the Earth), At the same time, technology is ubiquitous and presents itself as an enabling tool for reconnection.

'Twitter feeds' - Prototype interaction / augmented reality woodland walk in kitchen cupboard and augmented binocular woodland panoramic view

Design James McAdam and Nick Gant Fabrication James McAdam

Our famous Waste House begins its wilder regenerative retrofit becoming The Wild House with a new mixed species timbe facade from a woodland managed for the benefit for nature.

The material language deliberately uses mixed timbers, widths and even thickness to be more reflective of a more diverse and resilient woodland.

Design and experience:

How can regenerative resources, objects and interfaces forge meaningful, educational and joyful relationships between people and nature, as part of an Ecology of Things (EoT’s)?

Can these kinds of interactions support greater material literacy and eco-logical understanding in diverse public communities, stakeholder and service provider sectors?

What design and resource specifications best inform the provision of ‘social homes’ for considerate ancestors of humans along with all living beings?

What is the feasibility, desirability and acceptability of regenerative materials and products in the homes, lives and aspirations of everyday people?

Economic and ecological:

Can nature-prioritised-products play a role in mass social housing supply chains, or are they only to be accessible within niche fringes of design culture or to a rarefied, wealthy few?

How might regenerative resourcing methods support the social housing providers to deliver on multiple expectations and legislation for carbon reduction, local employment and Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS), Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and human health metrics?