Regenerative Design: Creating Living Systems That Heal Communities
By Natalie Gray, Head of Project Design, LOFT
After 20 years in interior design, I've seen how spaces can either drain life or amplify it.
Traditional design extracts: it takes materials from distant places, imposes aesthetic preferences without community input, and creates environments that require constant energy inputs to maintain.
Regenerative design operates from a fundamentally different principle: spaces should give back more than they take. Not just to their immediate users, but to the broader community, ecosystem, and web of relationships that sustain life itself.
At LOFT, regenerative design isn't a trend or marketing position - it's a fundamental shift in how we understand our role as creators of living environments.
Beyond Green Building: Living Systems Thinking
The sustainability movement has focused primarily on reducing harm: less energy, fewer toxic materials, reduced waste. These remain essential, but regenerative design goes further by asking how spaces can actively heal the social and ecological systems they're part of.
This requires thinking systemically about the relationships between built environments and living systems.
How does a BTR development interact with its surrounding environment? How do material choices support or undermine local ecosystems? How do social spaces foster or fragment community relationships?
Our Deep & Enriched design trend (featuring rich tones paired with sculptural shapes) exemplifies this approach. The aesthetic draws inspiration from the natural world while using materials that support indoor air quality and resident wellbeing. But more fundamentally, the design creates spaces that encourage the kinds of social interactions that build community resilience.
Built on Vision Guide
Don't get left behind in the property industry! Things change quickly when it comes to PropTech, but LOFT is firmly focused on the future. Download our brochure of future trends and how to stay ahead of the curve:
Biophilic Integration as Ecosystem Building
Our biophilic design principles extend far beyond adding plants to spaces. True biophilic integration creates indoor ecosystems that support both human and more-than-human life while connecting residents to the natural world in meaningful ways.
Living wall systems, for example, aren't just aesthetic features - they're functioning ecosystems that improve air quality, provide habitat for beneficial insects, and create micro-climates that support resident wellbeing. We advise sourcing plants from local native species that support regional biodiversity while requiring minimal water and maintenance inputs.
But the real innovation lies in how these systems connect residents to ecological cycles. Residents participate in plant care, harvest herbs for cooking, and observe seasonal changes in their immediate environment. These daily interactions rebuild the connection to natural systems that urban living often severs.
Materials as Ecosystem Participants
Every material choice is an ecological vote for the kind of world we want to create. Traditional interior design often prioritises appearance and cost over ecological impact, creating beautiful spaces that extract value from distant ecosystems while contributing little to local environmental health.
Recent insights from our visit to Clerkenwell Design Week 2025 reinforce this shift toward material consciousness. The show highlighted a movement toward sugar-based bioplastics, fully recyclable 3D-knitted upholstery, and zero-waste production methods. Raw and natural materials like stone, clay, travertine, and fossil textures dominated surfaces, reflecting a collective return to nature that aligns perfectly with regenerative principles.
Our future regenerative materials strategy prioritises:
- Locally-sourced materials that support regional ecosystems and reduce transportation impacts
- Bio-based alternatives like mycelium leather and hemp textiles that sequester carbon during production
- Reclaimed materials that extend lifecycle while preserving embedded energy
- Living materials like cork and bamboo that can be harvested without ecosystem destruction
But material selection goes deeper than environmental impact. We prioritise materials that improve indoor air quality, regulate humidity naturally, and create sensory experiences that support human health and wellbeing.
Cultural Regeneration Through Design
Regenerative design recognises that social and ecological health are inseparable. Spaces that support cultural expression and community connection create the social resilience necessary for environmental stewardship.
Our Ground Your Home trend (featuring earth tones and textural elements) draws inspiration from diverse cultural traditions of creating grounding, centering spaces. This approach resonates with the colour and mood trends observed at Clerkenwell 2025, where deep, mood-lifting hues like terracotta, mocha, and organic greens dominated
palettes. Rather than appropriating specific cultural aesthetics, we create frameworks that residents can adapt to their own cultural practices and preferences.
The emphasis is on "colour as emotion" - using colour to tell stories, elicit feeling, and create deep sensory experiences - perfectly complements our cultural regeneration approach. When residents feel culturally affirmed in their spaces through these emotionally intelligent design choices, they're more likely to invest in long-term community building and environmental stewardship.
Designing for Climate Resilience
Climate change demands that design move beyond mitigation to adaptation and resilience, creating buildings and Interiors that are robust, adaptable, and sustainable in the face of climate change. This includes using durable materials, incorporating passive cooling and heating strategies, and integrating nature-based solutions like green roofs and rainwater harvesting to minimise energy consumption and enhance building performance
The trend toward "cocooning silhouettes" and organic, rounded forms reflects a broader human need for comfort and security in uncertain times.
Climate resilience also means designing for longevity and adaptability. Our Escape the Norm trend (featuring playful, vibrant elements) creates spaces that remain engaging across different life circumstances and cultural shifts. The focus on "timeless with a twist" – whereby classic forms are softened or updated with bold materials and new functionalities - supports this adaptive approach. Residents don't need to replace furniture when their lives change - the furniture adapts with them.
Light, Atmosphere & Regenerative Environments
The sophisticated approach to lighting observed at Clerkenwell 2025 - where designers played with shadows, transparencies, and light-bending materials to evoke mood and serenity - aligns beautifully with regenerative design principles. Lighting becomes more than illumination; it's a tool to set tone, rhythm, and emotional depth while supporting circadian health and wellbeing.
Our regenerative spaces integrate filtered and refracted light systems that connect residents to natural daily and seasonal rhythms, supporting both individual health and ecological awareness.
Interior Design from LOFT
LOFT's award-winning Interior Design service can help you to create the perfect home or space that your residents will love.
Measuring Regenerative Impact
Regenerative design requires new metrics that capture value creation beyond traditional interior design measures. We track:
- Biodiversity impact through habitat creation and native species support
- Carbon sequestration through material choices and living systems integration
- Air quality improvement through biophilic systems and non-toxic materials
- Community health indicators including stress reduction and social connection
- Cultural vitality measures including creative expression and cultural practice support
The Clerkenwell emphasis on "neurodivergence-inclusive" environments and "wellbeing-first design" provides additional frameworks for measuring regenerative impact through adaptable lighting, flexible spaces, and sensory zoning.
Our upcoming Manchester Living Lab will provide the first comprehensive measurement of regenerative design impact in BTR environments. This data will demonstrate what we already know from experience: spaces designed to support life systems create measurably better outcomes for all participants.
Economic Regeneration Through Design
Regenerative design creates economic value that traditional approaches cannot achieve. Residents in regeneratively designed spaces show longer tenancy duration, higher satisfaction scores, and greater willingness to recommend developments to others.
The trend toward "hotelification" of everyday spaces - bringing luxurious touches to workplace, retail, and residential environments - demonstrates market demand for comfort, quality, and experience. These outcomes translate directly to improved financial performance through reduced marketing costs, faster letting speeds, and premium pricing.
The investment in regenerative design systems pays for itself through operational improvements while delivering broader community and environmental benefits. More fundamentally, regenerative design creates ongoing value streams through ecosystem services, community wealth building, and cultural vitality that extend far beyond individual project boundaries.
The Regenerative Design Process
Our regenerative design process begins with deep listening to the specific place, community, and ecosystem context where each project is located. This includes:
- Ecological assessment of local environment
- Cultural mapping of community assets, practices, and aspirations
- Systems analysis of existing social and economic relationships
- Future visioning with community members about desired outcomes
Design decisions emerge from this contextual understanding rather than imposed aesthetic preferences. The emphasis on "design as storytelling" - where sustainability narratives and emotional connection drive aesthetic decisions - supports this place-based approach.
The result is spaces that feel authentically connected to their place while supporting the specific regenerative goals relevant to that context.
Start the Conversation
Put our team to the test. If you have a project in mind that you think we could help you with, then get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.
Beyond Individual Projects: Regenerative Networks
As our portfolio of regeneratively designed spaces grows, we're creating networks of mutual support and learning between developments. Residents share knowledge about urban gardening, waste reduction, and community organising. Successful innovations get adapted and spread to other communities.
These networks create collective impact that exceeds the sum of individual projects. Regenerative design becomes a movement for social and ecological healing that extends far beyond the buildings themselves.
An Invitation to Transformation
Design is shifting toward the expressive, the personal, and the deeply sustainable. The emphasis is on "harmony over hype" - prioritising longevity, connection, and intentionality over trendiness - perfectly encapsulating the regenerative design ethos.
Regenerative design represents an invitation to fundamentally reimagine the relationship between built environments and living systems. Rather than creating spaces that require constant inputs to maintain, we can create spaces that generate health, beauty, and vitality through their very existence.
This transformation is already happening. The collective movement toward deeply human, emotionally intelligent design demonstrates industry-wide recognition that beauty must respect both the individual and the planet.
The only question is how quickly the BTR sector will embrace its potential to become a force for regeneration rather than extraction.
At LOFT, we're committed to leading this transformation through every design decision, material choice, and community relationship we create.
The future is regenerative. The question is whether you'll help create it.
Recent News
