The Regenerative Mindset
Season 3: Episode 6
Have you heard the terms sustainability, restoration, conservation, bioregionalism, or regeneration? What’s the difference between them? How can we apply each to design?
Nisha Mary Poulose joins Eric to share the work being done at her organizations, Regenerative Rising and the Woven Design Collaborative. What these organizations have accomplished continue to help better define “regeneration” not only for her collaborators but for designers. In this episode Nisha argues why we must shift our mindset to think like nature and how ecological principles can be best applied to design to create our present and future.
Listen to this episode on: Spotify, Apple, Google and other places you get your podcastsAbout our guest
Nisha Mary Poulose is the Executive Director of Regenerative Rising. She is an award-winning architect and regional planner, whose career at the confluence of human habitat, planning, and the environment now spans 14 years and 3 countries. Her regenerative focus has been the guiding force behind her work, as is the deep bond she shares with nature and indigenous systems. As Executive Director of Regenerative Rising, she looks forward to weaving complexity through interdisciplinary collaboration and holistic co-creation.
Since 2018, she has been running Woven Design Collaborative- A multi-disciplinary spatial planning organization she founded in India, which works to solve grass root issues with a whole systems approach to bridging silos. She is also a co-convener for the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), whom she supports with strategic visions and action plans for integrated regional development to preserve human and natural heritage, with regenerative livelihoods and vernacular wisdom at the center.
In 2015 she won an award from the Prime Minister of India for her ideas on how Smart Cities in India can solve critical problems. She previously worked with the Government of Karnataka to integrate sustainable mobility into cities. She holds many other volunteer positions in the climate action and community development space and strongly believes that collective action is the need of the hour. Nisha did her architecture in India before being selected for the Erasmus Mundus Program in Europe where she gained two advanced degrees: MSc. International Cooperation in Urban Development and MSc. Urbanism, Habitat and International Cooperation.
She grew up in Kottayam, a small town in Kerala- the South-Western coastal State in India known for its natural and cultural heritage and is abundant in tropical biodiversity. Her relationship with nature is one that she cultivated in her childhood and continues to inform her thoughts and actions. She relaxes by hiking, solving jigsaw puzzles, or sneaking away with her cat Cleo to finish a book.
On the web
linkedin.com/in/nishamarypoulose
Drawdown solution(s):
Food, Agriculture, and Land Use, Buildings
Episode topic tags:
regeneration, restorative, regenerative design, regenerative farming, local, systems thinking, ecology, nature mindset, healing and wellness
Find more about how to teach climate design in your classroom at www.climatedesigners.org/edu
Music in this episode
Nature sound effect by bbc.co.uk – ©2023 BBC
Theme music by Casual Motive
Design Team
Consulting
Climate Design Assignments
At the end of each episode, we ask our guests what their ideal climate design project would be. They have four weeks with a class full of design students. We translated their response into a project brief that you can use for your class.
