Revitalising building production through regeneration: A positional paper

Paper in proceeding, 2025

This paper explores regenerative building production as an approach that goes beyond minimising environmental harm to actively generating net-positive socio-ecological impacts. Grounding the discussion in sustainability transitions theory, we highlight how construction significantly contributes to global carbon emissions and waste. Using the phenomena construction methodology, a conceptual framework is proposed to integrate regenerative design principles with sociotechnical perspectives, framing the shift to regeneration as a transitional phenomenon and revealing how multilevel interactions among stakeholders, policies, and niche innovations can drive adoption. Practical steps for clients, designers, contractors, policymakers, and communities include revised procurement models, ecological design solutions, and policy incentives that support deeper collaboration and accountability. The paper underscores that achieving a regenerative transition requires shifting incentives, fostering collaboration, and effecting systemic change across the sector.