Large scale regeneration and the potential of cooperative design, with Weruschca Kirkegaard

Todays episode is going to build on a couple concepts that I’ve been exploring from different perspectives. The first is that of the power of community, and the second is different scales of regeneration. In this episode I’m joined by my good friend and mentor Weruschca Kirkegaard

based in the Netherlands, Weruschca the is co-founder of United Designers International and head of their project management. Her combined experience and knowledge of aesthetics, nutrition, health, and communications brings a multidisciplinary expertise to the design table.

She is seasoned in large scale project management and brings her skills to the larger ecological canvas with site science based regenerative planning and design from Adaptive Food Production, residential and commercial contexts, to Agroforestry and Municipal green space.

The aspect of community that Weruschca and I explore in this episode is focused on the inner workings and collaborations of United Designers International, the regenerative design consortium that she co founded with Dan Halsey. Their organization breaks the mold of most conventional businesses which try to hoard market share, or even freelancers that try to do everything themselves so that they don’t have to divide up the money that is coming in. Instead we explore reasons why bringing in as many people on a project is not only good for the project, but also for the people involved. 

United Designers is also world renowned for working on high profile and complex projects. Weruschca sheds light on the challenges of working on large initiatives with massive investments and many multiple stakeholders, and the way she has learned to navigate those complexities and broad considerations. 
If you’ve ever wondered what the inner workings of a proposal to the UN for regional scale regeneration or the process of ecological design for a massive estate looks like, this is the episode for you.