Regeneration over Sustainability

Design for net positive ecological impact, not merely reduced harm. Ask not how to reduce your impact but how to restore what has been damaged.

Systems Before Components

Understand relationships between systems before optimizing any individual component. Every decision affects multiple systems; evaluate decisions for their effects on the whole.

Passive Before Active

Exhaust passive design strategies before specifying active mechanical systems. A well-designed building envelope dramatically reduces the size and cost of all active systems.

Orientation is Primary

Building orientation is the single most impactful passive solar decision. Orient the primary solar face within 20 degrees of true south (northern hemisphere) before any other solar design decision.

Local Materials First

Prioritize locally available, low-embodied-energy materials. The ecological cost of transportation and industrial processing is part of the true cost of every material.

Waste is Resource

In a regenerative building, there is no waste: every output from one process is an input for another. Design all systems as closed loops.

Water is Precious

Design for the actual hydrology of your location. Harvest from the sky, use efficiently, treat on-site, and return to the landscape.

Place-Based Design

Every site is unique. Climate, topography, hydrology, culture, and ecology shape the appropriate design response. There is no universal solution.

Design for Resilience

A regenerative building should function well without utility infrastructure and maintain habitable conditions during power outages, water supply disruptions, or supply chain failures.

Buildings Teach

A well-designed regenerative building teaches its occupants about energy, water, and food through direct feedback. Design this feedback into the building intentionally.

Community is a System

Individual buildings are more resilient and more effective when they are part of a larger community that shares infrastructure, knowledge, and governance. Design for community from the beginning.

Integrate Food Production

A building that feeds its occupants is more regenerative than one that does not. Integrate food production into building and community design as a primary system, not an afterthought.

PANGEA BIOTECTURE

Regenerative Architecture, Design-Build, and Education

pangeabuild.com

info@pangeabuild.com

Taos, New Mexico