DEC 5&6 | Proposals due SEPT 13. A participatory, embodied, and pluriversal gathering to move towards systems change in the fashion and textile industry.
Gather: Fashion and textile industry experiential event
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Regenerative
Regenerative systems restore, renew, and maintain ecological balance, emphasising resilience through adaptability, enhancing interconnectedness, continuous feedback, and iterative improvements within complex living systems.
Moving Beyond Extractive Measurement: Introducing the Regenerative Evaluation Living paper
Unity Effect is a social enterprise that works with a network of freelancers who share regenerative mindsets. The paper is an open invitation to join the network. Lots to explore.
The Ultimate Reading List: bioregioning, regenerative patterns, myth and language
Tijn Tjoelker: With the joyful responsibility to “keep the gifts flowing,” I created an overview of my favourite articles. From The Mycelium on Substack.
In Memoriam: Marie Davidová’s trailblazing work in systemic design
This issue is dedicated to SDA founder and chair, Marie Davidová, who passed away on April 10. Please contribute to an article about Marie’s influence on systemic design by adding your remembrance in the comments section.
Multi-Scale More-than-Human Atlas-Gigamapping
Elena Porqueddu, Marie Davidová, Hanane Behnam, and María Claudia Valverde explore synergies between different mapping approaches—the multi-scale atlas and gigamapping—in this project funded by the German Research Foundation.
NetWall: The more-than-human ecosystemic socio-technical intervention codesign
Marie Davidová, Hanane Behnam, María Claudia Valverde Rojas, and Kateřina Lagner Zímová collaborate on a pioneering project focused on creating sustainable urban habitats through the development of biocorridors.
POL– AI: Leveraging urban ecosystem
Marie Davidova, Leonie K Fischer, and Martha Teye relate ecosystems with socio-technological systems in urban environments, “more-than-human architecture are necessary to counteract biodiversity loss.”
BioDiveIn Intervention Meets GoCOLife Urban Game
Marie Davidová reports on a prototypical urban intervention. The BioDiveIn and GoCOLIFE gigamaps serve as a process tool for co-designing with multiple actors, and linking social systems and technology to the ecosystem.
Generating Urban Connectivity Systemic Interventions
Danjian Wang and Marie Davidová explore how to generate urban bio-corridors within the framework of the Synergetic Landscapes Project. The paper proposes a prototype called Possible Fabrication as one of the more possible leverage points for the urban proposal.
COLreg: The Collective Regenerative Region
Marie Davidová and Kateřina Zímová’s introduce COLreg, a synergistic post-Anthropocene model, generating a bioregion for and with all.
Synergy in the Systemic Approach to Architectural Performance
Maria Davidová presents the Systemic Approach to Architectural Performance and concludes with their integration and synergy in a Real Life Co-Design Laboratory.
Socio-Environmental Relations of Non-Discrete Spaces and Architectures
Maria Davidová relates human, social, and biotic behaviour with climatic and geographical data, addressing interactions in the performance of architectures and urban design.
Systemic Approach to Performative Wood
Maria Davidová’s maps express different ranges and intensities of behaviour or performance in relation to placement or designs that are represented by informational layer of images. These thematic gigamaps are exemplars of ZIP‐analysis, zooming in a problem within the area of study.
(Non)Intervening in Complexity: The Navigational Wheel of Inquiry
RSD14 TALK. The Systemic Design Wheel of Inquiry is a didactic and practice-oriented framework developed to support systemic designers in navigating complex, evolving systems.
Radical Abundance—How to Win a Green Democratic Future
This book is a blueprint for escaping capitalism and creating a world of true abundance—By Kai Heron, Keir Milburn, and Bertie Russell
Abundance: What about public common partnerships?
Abundance promotes public-common strategies to democratise the economy and realise a just socio-ecological transition for everyone.
The Astronomical Fall
Karen O’Brien reflects on Bill McKibben’s new book, Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization—”we have to deliberately transform ourselves and our societies. Quickly.”
Principles for place-based community participation
James Turner sets out the principles developed through Revitalise te Taiao, a community-led research programme that aimed to create enduring environmental and economic benefits in three rural communities.
Six actions for ecologists in times of planetary crisis
Nathalie Pettorelli et al. (2025) suggest that the discipline of ecology doesn’t lend itself to addressing systemic issues. They suggest six actions that are needed to place the ecological community at the forefront of the response to the global environmental crisis.
Social-Ecological Systems Research and Practice
SocSES is a network of people doing research and working at the interface of science, policy, and practice. Organised around thematic streams, hubs, task forces, and SES early career.
About the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium
TIPC is a multi-country initiative dedicated to achieving socio-technical system change and a sustainable future. The resource lab offers tools, actions and learnings for implementing TIP methods.
When Waters Rise, Networks Matter – Orchestrating Disaster Response Across Scales
Hurricane Helene: what worked, what failed, and how strategic network design can help close the gap, and better prepare us for when waters rise again.
Online Course: Bioregioning in Practice
Systemic designers will recognise the facilitators. The Bioregional Learning Alliance course in foundational concepts and practical applications of bioregioning starts April 21 (online 10-weeks with certificate).
How to (non) intervene in complex systems?
An invited talk by Tobias Luthe hosted by Innovation North in February 2025. Video and transcript.
Podcast on systems thinking and food systems
If you want to learn more about systemic thinking and “system sensing”, listen to Episode 1 of Blaues Brot https://www.youtube.com/@r2gmedia [in German]
New publication: Circularity. A framing and navigating reflection.
A suggested definition: here is how I define circularity, which is a powerfully unifying, scientific and designerly concept.
Methodological Pluralism in Practice: A systemic design approach for place-based sustainability transformations
Haley Fitzpatrick, Tobias Luthe, and and Birger Sevaldson explore methodological plurality and integrate quantitative scientific methods with participatory gigamapping and embodied practices. This longitudinal design inquiry engaged with communities undergoing sustainability transformations across three mountain regions: Ostana, Italy; Hemsedal, Norway; and Mammoth Lakes, California. The authors identify the need for contemplative and psychological practices in systemic design that focus on inner resilience.
New Master of Advanced Studies MAS in Regenerative Systems at ETH Zurich
In this video conversation, Daniel Christian Wahl and I discuss some of the leading-edge content, didactics and practical benefits of the new Master of Advanced Studies program in Regenerative Systems offered by ETH Zurich | School for Continuing Education, as part of the #DRRS program by Systemic Design Labs ⎟ETH Zurich, which I am responsible for.