Regenerative Metropolis Symposium 2026

Now Accepting Session Proposals!

Preparations for NYPH’s Regenerative Metropolis Symposium 2026 are underway!  Reflecting the inspiring success of this past year’s event, we again invite this incredible passive house and regenerative design & construction community to submit proposals for presentations.  We are interested in any project, development, process, system, policy or product - that reaches for Regenerative Design and addresses Passive House principles. The additional frameworks we are including this year also reflect an approach to circularity, systems thinking, and economics, with the aim of enabling projects in a way that is: financially feasible, constructible, and resilient over time.  

Topic areas and project examples we are looking for:

• Projects that address the value of Passive Buildings 
• Making projects pencil (development financing, underwriting, and project economics)
• Affordability of construction
• Comparing retrofit vs. rebuild (from the lens of cost, carbon, systems thinking)
• Designing for deconstruction and reuse
• Designing building/community features that generate and redistribute income
• Material and resource efficiency, and waste reduction
• Replicability - prefabrication, panelized construction, and repeatable approaches
• Novel approaches to maintenance & operations affordability
• Projects that tie in concepts from Regenerative Economics
• Projects that take inspiration from Buckminster Fuller principles

Larger Frameworks - Regenerative Economics

This year we are drawing inspiration from two modes of thought to deepen the discussion and bring insight into the larger frameworks that govern the built environment. These are Regenerative Economics and Systems Thinking, represented by such thought leaders as the “Doughnut Economics Action Lab” and the “Buckminster Fuller Institute”.

 Regenerative approaches are emerging in every human endeavor, and the field of economics is no exception. For example, since the days of Adam Smith, our current framework has been built upon the concept of scarcity, with the American Economic association defining economics as: “It’s the study of scarcity, the study of how people use resources and respond to incentives, or the study of decision-making”.  This is only one example of the fundamental framing that has failed us, with Robin Wall Kimmerer describing our situation thusly: “continued fealty to economies based on competition for manufactured scarcity, rather than cooperation around natural abundance, is now causing us to face the danger of producing real scarcity…”  Regenerative Economics however is taking hold and expressed in works of economist Elinor Ostrom, Kate Rayworth, and Valerie Luzadis, and organizations such as BioFi Project, United States Society for Ecological Economics, Capital Institute, Dark Matter Labs, Doughnut Economics Action Lab, and more!  The design and construction industry will resonate with the way foundational economic images, assumed to be immutable laws (such as the supply/depend curve), are actually preventing us from seeing the full picture.

The work and teachings of R. Buckminster Fuller inspired a generation of ecological designers, those designers integrating natural systems with human systems at the scales of building, community, and city. Part of Bucky’s core thinking: do more with less, supporting 100% of humanity with the resources we have. An inventor, he thought at the scale of a tool and the scale of the earth. Among Bucky’s notable architectural achievements: (1) the Dymaxion House, originally conceived in the late 1920s, brought to public in mid-1940’s because requisite materials were only then available.  Designed to be light, portable, suspended on a central mast, self-sufficient with respect to water and waste management, efficiently using recyclable material.  (2) The United States Pavilion at Expo Montreal 1966, a 12 storey geodesic dome, an extremely strong and resilient structure enclosing a large volume of space with minimal material. Regenerative design and integration of whole systems, natural and human, are embedded in Buckminster Fuller’s work and teachings. Today, organizations such as the Buckminster Fuller Institute continue his work including on how Regenerative Design intersects with Regenerative Finance.

We look forward to your submission, sharing the work, and discussing openly the road ahead! 

Criteria for Proposal Evaluation:

• Deployment of Passive House principles
• Data, modeled or measured
• Comprehensiveness of Regenerative Design
• Integration and addressing of large frameworks and systems
• Higher Density or more Urban contexts preferred

Location and Deadline:

New York, NY  (In Person)

Date: Climate Week - September 2026

Application Deadline:  April 17th 2026 (9pm)

Application form found here: https://forms.office.com/r/mPrgLWzbVF