Jerry Tate is on a mission to deliver projects that allow people living and working in crowded urban conditions to enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship with the natural world.
Jerry Tate at Tate + Co’s studio at Stamford Works, a former printworks in Dalston, East London that has been converted into mixed use space including flexible workspace for the creative industries.
It’s been said you can’t make everyone do the right thing, but you can show them what it could be. That’s true to an extent. Unless you’re working for a super-rich client with impeccable intentions, you’ll always be compromised.
So what the hell is regenerative design? I don’t think there’s enough knowledge-sharing of regenerative design practice for people to fully understand how to deliver it. Before we start any project, we ask ourselves are we being as carbon negative as we can? Are we improving biodiversity? And are we giving communities what they need and want? We’re not going to achieve everything on every project and we have to accept that. Otherwise, we would never build anything!
As soon as you start measuring embodied carbon you start to consider local sourcing. What can you achieve using the materials you have? What can you grow near the site? For example, within one year, 70 hectares of hemp will yield build materials – and potentially provide land – for 60, 3-bed houses. Upon completion, the onsite, flying factory can be sold or kept as a community barn.
I grew up in Suffolk in the middle of nowhere. It was an Enid Blyton childhood, but it was lonely. In London I love the people, the culture, but there isn’t enough nature. How do I square this circle?
To make a real difference, we need more central London – more inherently urban – projects to adopt the regenerative design ethos. Our approach plays out well in rural settings and that’s great but it doesn’t solve the problem of how you use regenerative design thinking to make cities nicer places. It’s harder to use exclusively natural materials in larger buildings. It’s harder to make and maintain mutually positive relationships with nature in an urban setting. It’s harder to create meaningful community spaces for people living 20 storeys up. But we know it’s possible! Our aim is to bring the kind of work we’ve delivered in rural settings to the city. That’s the holy grail.
Jerry Tate
Tate + Co
London N16
Reinventing practice features participants in the Regenerative Architecture Index.
Source: Architecture Today
