Weaving landscape fabrics of ecological cities: patterns for regenerative-adaptive futures

Intense fascination is under way in weaving landscape fabrics of potential ecological cities, where the principles of regenerative-adaptive design are being linked towards re-positioning nature in cities, urban planning and design strategies, and urban resilience planning. This advancement is in part fueled by the consideration of ‘living structures’, ‘generative codes’, ‘natural attraction’, ‘emergence’, ‘nature of order’ and ‘Biophilia’ and are inspiring new insights into the workings of nature, as well as humanity’s position and responsibility to planet Earth. It is being articulated through the rapidly increasing science of pattern theory linked to a new era in an restorative ecology-informed design and planning method for natural and built environments. In this context, the idea of design as an adaptive and transformation process that is at the core of the whole systems theory is explored in this paper, and examined through ecological-city informed concepts using the regenerative-adaptive pattern language approach to place making based on principles of ecology and nature connected biophilia strategies. This paper concludes that there needs to be a shift in the logic of land use planning practice and design processes so that it is more responsive and accountable to the changes of the environment and nature’s processes overall.