About Us
Designing for Collapse. Rebuilding for Life.
Transforming Design for the Age of Collapse
The School of Regenerative Design exists to transform the practice of architecture, planning, construction, interiors, and landscape design for a rapidly changing world. Our mission is to teach students and returning practitioners—of any age or background—through a uniquely holistic, interdisciplinary approach.
We prepare future leaders with the mindset, tools, and ecological literacy necessary to meet the urgent social and environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. Through our programs, we cultivate Green Warriors™—individuals equipped to influence systems and restore life through design.
The Current Paradigm is Failing. We’re Building the Next One
Our cities, infrastructure, and buildings are among the leading drivers of planetary collapse—impacting habitat, climate, and resource systems at scale. The old model is broken. What comes next demands a complete rethinking of how we live, build, and design.
How do you create infrastructure that responds to climate chaos?
How do you unlearn harmful practices and re-learn how to build for life?
How do we design for relevance in a world defined by disruption?
At SORD, we bring together keystone individuals—designers, engineers, builders—to wrestle with these exact questions. Our focus is regeneration: the active healing of ecosystems and cultural fabric through the frameworks of the built environment.
Rooted in Bioregion. Focused on Systems
The School of Regenerative Design is a small, specialized, interdisciplinary learning institution offering continuing education, internships, and hands-on experience for those seeking to create meaningful change.
We are a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in the United States.
Our curriculum is grounded in:
Whole systems thinking
Move beyond harm reduction—design to restore and heal.
Altruistic design principles
Create resilient, adaptive systems rooted in place.
Bioregional intelligence
Design with local ecology to guide global relevance.
Located in the Cascadia bioregion—a place of natural richness and ecological complexity—we emphasize place-making, regional economies, and design solutions informed by climate, microclimates, and local resources.
30 Years of Building for Regeneration
For nearly three decades, we’ve been defining and advancing the idea of “living buildings”—structures that are self-sufficient, resilient, and ecologically elegant. These lessons now shape the foundation of our teaching.
The School was born from lived experience: a deep investigation into what works, what heals, and what sustains. We teach not just what’s new—but what’s next.
