Regenerative Design in the Territory: Recalibrating Supply Chain Ecologies

This research seminar explores how design, ecology, and systems thinking can address critical challenges in sustainability at regional scales. Focusing on supply chains for essential resources like food, water, and energy, the course examines how these systems shape and transform the built and natural environments.

Students will investigate current systems’ environmental and social impacts on local ecologies and communities. We will ask: How can we reimagine the landscapes of supply systems, meaning the sourcing and movement of essential products and resources to restore balance and recalibrate human and environmental relationships for a better future?

We will use methodologies of design, with an emphasis on multi-disciplinary research, design-thinking frameworks for actionable proposals. The class will introduce regenerative design principles for resiliency, equity, and the healing of ecosystems. The class will include guest lectures and presentations of case studies of projects.

At the end of the semester, each student will present a proposal for the redesign of a supply chain system and its corresponding built and natural environment. Open to all disciplines; the course provides a platform for envisioning alternative futures where supply chains act not as extractive systems but as regenerative networks.

Disclaimer:
This is not a course about supply chain economic optimization; it focuses on raw materials, extraction and transformation (for example, coffee, cacao, paper, minerals…)  and the impact that such processes have on the land, environment, and communities. The emphasis is on redesigning and reconfiguring the places and relationships of said supply chains.