The Regenerative Design Podcast™

"If something's sustainable, you actually need to be in relationship with the ecology of your region."The idea that disaster preparedness and beautiful, productive land design are the same project sounds counterintuitive until someone walks you through it step by step. That is exactly what this episode does. Chris Gilmour has spent the last two decades working at an unusual crossroads: professional emergency and disaster management on one side, permaculture and wilderness ecology on the other. What he has found — and what this conversation makes vividly concrete — is that the frameworks that make a property resilient to disaster are the same frameworks that make it productive, beautiful, and low-maintenance. You are not choosing between a functional property and a thriving one. Designed well, they are the same property.Matthieu and Chris move through real examples at every scale: a 26-acre homestead where cutting a stand of trees eliminated a structural hazard, stopped chronic rot, produced a year of firewood, stabilised sandy soil, and grew into a food forest and assisted-migration wildlife corridor — all in one design move. A Southern Ontario power grid where the wrong tree species growing under power lines has quietly created a catastrophic ice-storm risk for millions of people. An urban school where thorny native hedgerows replaced barbed wire fencing and clear sightlines replaced random layout — invisible preparedness that looks entirely like a garden. And a perennial polyculture on a front lawn that produces blueberries, honeyberries, elderberries, mushrooms, rhubarb, and squash on a few hours of tending per year. The episode is a masterclass in what it means to hold the ecological lens and the practical, financial, and resilience lenses simultaneously — and to refuse to give any of them up.Chris Gilmour is a Canadian wilderness guide, survival instructor, permaculture practitioner, and certified emergency and disaster management consultant. He grew up as a suburban kid whose father took him into the backcountry on canoe trips, and has spent the decades since building a deep fluency in ecology, traditional plant knowledge, forestry, and professional emergency planning — working with municipalities, hospitals, hydro corporations, and private landowners alike. He runs a 26-acre permaculture homestead in Ontario, consults with individuals, organizations, businesses, and communities through his holistic emergency preparedness framework, and shares much of this thinking freely through his newsletter and YouTube channel. He is one of the rare practitioners who has genuinely integrated these two worlds rather than simply borrowing vocabulary from each.Learn more and connect:1. Chris Gilmour's website, newsletter, consulting, and online courses: https://www.chrisoutdoors.ca2. YouTube channel — practical, short-form videos of these design concepts in the field: search "Chris Outdoors ON" on YouTubeTake the next step in designing land that works with nature and performs for your future:Discover more about regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects: https://www.paulownia-la.comDive into the 12 Universal Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.comFulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.comReady to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams---

"If you care about people, if you're going to start a business — do it. But if you're a person that can't delegate, that can't trust people, that has a cynical view, wants to micromanage everything — I'd say don't do it."There is a version of the business-culture conversation that has become so familiar it says almost nothing: mission statements, ping pong tables, buzzwords on a wall. And then there is the version Rick Rosenfield lived — four decades of building, selling, surviving, and occasionally watching others dismantle what he created — which turns out to be a very different story.Rick co-founded California Pizza Kitchen in Beverly Hills in 1985 with his law partner Larry Flax. Neither had ever run a restaurant. What they did have was a clear sense of how they wanted to treat people — team members, customers, and each other — and the stubbornness to act on it even before they had language for what they were doing. The company they built grew into one of the most recognisable restaurant brands in America: hundreds of locations, a devoted following, and a culture that kept people loyal for 30 and 40 years at a stretch.In this conversation, Rick traces the CPK origin story back to Alice Waters and the farm-to-table movement that started at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, explains how barbecue chicken pizza became the unlikely hook that launched a cultural phenomenon, and unpacks the four-word framework — ROCK: Respect, Opportunity, Communication, Kindness — that eventually codified what they had been doing by instinct from day one. He speaks with equal honesty about the hard parts: over-expansion under PepsiCo, the pain of laying off people he cared about, and watching private equity strip quality from a brand he had built by hand.The conversation also moves into territory that connects directly to Matthieu's work — the grassroots nature of genuine movements, why political framing of environmental issues gets nothing done, regenerative hospitality, and what Larry Ellison is building on the island of Lanai: a self-sufficient ecosystem anchored in regenerative farming, wellness, and guided land stewardship. For anyone thinking about how to build something that lasts, scales, and still means something, Rick's forty-one years of experience is a rare and honest guide.---Learn more and connect:1. Rick Rosenfield's website (book, contact, signed copies): https://www.rickrosenfield.com2. The California Pizza Kitchen Story on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com3. Rick Rosenfield on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-rosenfield4. Sensei Retreats — Larry Ellison's regenerative wellness concept on Lanai: https://www.senseiretreats.com5. Pineapple Brothers — guided hunting and land stewardship on Lanai: https://www.pineapplebrothers.com---Discover more resources to take your thinking further in regenerative design and business:Discover more about regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects: https://www.paulownia-la.comDive into the 12 Universal Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.comFulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.comReady to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams---

"The nervous system is not just regulated, it's recalibrated — means it gets its baseline shifts to something more robust, that's more emotionally resilient. It takes way more for you to be feeling startled, upset."If regenerating degraded land means restoring its capacity to produce life, what would it mean to apply the same logic to the human body? That is the thread running through this conversation with Erwan Le Corre — a thinker and practitioner who has spent over two decades arguing that the way modern life treats the body is structurally identical to the way industrial agriculture treats soil: extractive, monotonous, cut off from the conditions it actually needs to thrive. The parallels he draws are not metaphorical gestures. They are precise, biological, and actionable. And his method for addressing the problem — through natural movement and deliberate breath holding — runs directly against the prevailing current of a wellness industry built on reducing stress rather than building the capacity to handle it.Erwan Le Corre is the founder of MovNat, the practice of natural human movement that he effectively created as a named, teachable discipline over twenty years ago. Before MovNat existed as a method, the full spectrum of human movement abilities — climbing, jumping, balancing, carrying, crawling, swimming — had been fragmented into specialised sports or simply forgotten as a dimension of fitness. Le Corre reassembled them into a unified practice now taught by certified coaches around the world. More recently, he has developed Breath Hold Work, a method that uses breath retention not to calm the nervous system but to recalibrate it — training the mind to generate patience, clarity, and emotional stability under the specific stress of oxygen deprivation, with the result that those qualities become structurally embedded, not just temporarily available. He holds the US national record in static apnea and is currently writing three books, including one on the physiology, history, and mind-training applications of breath holding.Learn more and connect:1. MovNat — natural movement method and certified coaching worldwide: https://www.movnat.com2. Breath Hold Work — Erwan Le Corre's breath holding and mind training practice: https://www.breathholdwork.com---Explore these resources to go further with regenerative design and natural living:Discover more about regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects: https://www.paulownia-la.comDive into the 12 Universal Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.comFulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.comReady to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams---

"If the zoos would be unpaid, we could use them as actually wellness centers, as regenerative centers, as psychological centers. We could do sports, we could do picnics, we could do community stuff and still enjoy the animals and connect to the animals as to an animal and not a commodity which I paid for."There is a field of design science called neuroarchitecture, and it has been quietly documenting something most of us half-know but have never been able to name: that the spaces we live and work in are not neutral. Our brains — operating on wiring that predates cities, screens, and open-plan offices by tens of thousands of years — are constantly reading every built environment we enter for signals of safety, threat, and belonging. The design choices we make, often for reasons of trend or cost or aesthetic fashion, are landing in an ancient nervous system that was not consulted when those choices were made. The results are measurable, and often uncomfortable.Nadia Riley came to this field from an unexpected angle. She is an animal architect — perhaps the only practicing architect in the world whose entire professional focus is the design of environments for non-human animals. She trained in architecture, redirected her degree towards the design of veterinary facilities and quarantine centers for wildlife, built a practice that took her from rhino sanctuaries in South Africa to animal facilities across the Emirates and beyond, and then, after a genuine professional and personal crisis that she describes with candour and precision, rebuilt that practice on a deeper foundation. The field of neuroarchitecture, which had been developed in the context of human spaces, gave her new tools to ask more rigorous questions about what animal habitats actually require — not just in terms of welfare regulations and square metres, but in terms of the sensory and biological needs of the animals themselves.What emerges in this conversation is a way of thinking about designed space that cuts across the animal-human boundary. The same principles that explain why high-gloss bathroom tiles increase stress and why open-plan offices undermine productivity also explain why so many zoo habitats fail the animals inside them. And the same corrective — designing from the inside out, from the lived experience of the being who will inhabit the space, rather than from aesthetic trend or institutional convenience — applies equally to a gorilla enclosure and a human home.Learn more and connect:1. Animal Space Design (Nadia Riley's practice, portfolio, and free downloadable articles) — https://www.animalspacedesign.com2. Free resources and PDFs on animal architecture tools and methods — available at the free downloadables section of https://www.animalspacedesign.com3. Connect with Nadia Riley on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/hazkoba-nadia-riley-architecture-animals/Take your understanding of regenerative design further with these resources:Discover more about regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects: https://www.paulownia-la.comDive into the 12 Universal Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.comFulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.comReady to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams

Pablo Luna is a Bali-based architect building in six countries simultaneously — and he refuses to draw a single line until he has spent between three and nine months studying the land.Founder of Pablo Luna Studio, Pablo works with bamboo and natural materials across Bali, Bhutan, Portugal, Mexico, and Uganda, designing wellness retreats, learning centres, and private residences that emerge from the ecology and culture of each place rather than being imposed on it.What separates his practice from conventional architecture is a rigorous pre-design phase he calls territorial studies — a systematic mapping of sun paths, wind corridors, tree canopies, animal habitats, ancestral land meanings, local material traditions, and community knowledge. Only once that investigation is complete does translation into design begin.In this conversation, Pablo walks through his full process — from land reading to material sourcing, from managing six projects across six cultures simultaneously to the discipline of stopping work at 5pm every day.Learn more and connect:1. Pablo Luna Studio website: https://www.pablolunastudio.com2. Pablo Luna Studio on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pablolunastudio3. Email Pablo's team: [email protected] mentioned:1. Pablo Luna Studio — https://www.pablolunastudio.com2. Green School Bali (John and Cynthia Hardy) — https://www.greenschool.org3. Bambu Indah Hotel, Bali — https://www.bambuindah.com4. 12 Universal Laws of Nature by Matthieu Mehuys — https://www.12lawsofnature.comTake the next step in regenerative design with these resources:Discover more about regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects: https://www.paulownia-la.comDive into the 12 Universal Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.comFulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.comReady to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams

"The same piece of land that used to support three generations, three generations ago, can now only support one generation."Most people entering regenerative agriculture do so not from farming families, but from boardrooms — bankers, lawyers, construction company owners, people whose families got sick and started asking harder questions about what they were eating. Judith Horvath is one of them. A biologist by training, she spent 25 years in corporate scientific research publishing before the pandemic made a decision for her: looking out over her sheep from a makeshift dining room office, she knew she wasn't going back. That clarity is now the foundation of her consultancy, Regenerative Ag Design, and the lens through which she reads a farming system in genuine crisis — one where multi-generational families are financially trapped by shrinking margins and depleting soil, and where the younger generation leaving the land is often the rational choice rather than a failure of values.Judith Horvath is the founder of Regenerative Ag Design, an agroecology consultancy based in Ohio, and the owner-operator of Fairhill Farm. A trained biologist with permaculture design certification and over a decade of hands-on farming experience, she works across three client segments: new farmers who need a Sherpa, affluent landowners developing regenerative passion projects or homesteads, and large-scale agrihood developments. She is a part-owner and agricultural designer of the Hickory Run agrihood project in Northeast Ohio, host of the Fairhill Farmstead Life podcast, and has a forthcoming book on natural and low-cost parasite control for livestock.Learn more and connect:1. Regenerative Ag Design, Judith's consultancy — https://regenerativeagdesign.com2. Fairhill Farm — https://fairhillfarm.com3. Fairhill Farmstead Life, Judith's own podcast — search for it on your podcast app of choice4. Hickory Run Agrihood, the eight-enterprise regenerative community Judith is designing in Northeast Ohio — currently in development5. Judith Horvath on LinkedIn — search "Judith Horvath"Explore these valuable resources to further your journey in regenerative design:Discover more about regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects: https://www.paulownia-la.comDive into the 12 Universal Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.comFulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.comReady to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams

"We can't live longer and better without the planet being healthy."The longevity industry has spent a decade and a fortune chasing biohacks, diagnostics and supplements. Amy McDonald has watched all of it from inside the wellness world — and her argument is not that longevity is wrong, but that it has been looking in the wrong direction. The real answer, she suggests, was always in the soil.McDonald is the founder of Under a Tree, a regenerative wellness consultancy now in its twenty-first year, and her story is the throughline. A permaculture garden on the Baja coast in the early 1990s that moved guests to tears. A formative stretch at Miraval, where mindfulness — not architecture — built the brand. And a cautionary chapter at El Monte Sagrado in Taos: one of the most visionary sustainable properties ever built, lost not for lack of money or vision but for lack of market research and a working airport. From that heartbreak came the principle she now lives by — build the business model before you build the building.It's a conversation about doing good and doing well at the same time. McDonald is refreshingly clear that regenerative places have to be profitable, that sustainability alone is no longer enough, and that the market is finally arcing back toward land connection and agritourism. She and Matthieu also find the place where their work overlaps: both begin not with a drawing but by observing the land itself and asking what it most wants to become.Learn more & connect:Amy McDonald — Under a Tree (regenerative wellness consulting): https://www.underatree.comEmail: [email protected] mentioned:Under a Tree — Amy McDonald's regenerative wellness consultancy — https://www.underatree.comMiraval (Life in Balance) — the mindfulness-led wellness resort that shaped her methodologyEl Monte Sagrado, Taos — the visionary sustainable property whose collapse taught the business-model-first lessonRegenesis — the regenerative development group (Pamela and Robert Mang) behind El Monte SagradoRancho La Puerta, Tecate — the long-running wellness ranch she came to see as a kindred modelDiscover more about regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects: https://www.paulownia-la.comDive into the 12 Universal Laws of Nature: https://www.12lawsofnature.comBuild the garden of your dreams: https://www.gardenofyourdreams.comBook a free 30-minute session with Matthieu: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams

“Most people are good. I really believe that. Most people are doing their best. Then you have to ask yourself, not just in agriculture, but in every field, well, if so many people mean well, why is so much going wrong?”Many of the world’s biggest environmental, social, and economic problems may not be caused by bad people or a lack of scientific knowledge. They may stem from the way large institutions make decisions. This episode explores the difference between treating symptoms and addressing root causes, challenging conventional thinking around science, governance, biodiversity loss, agriculture, and civilization itself. Rather than focusing on isolated solutions, the discussion centers on understanding the systems that shape human behavior and ecological outcomes.Allan Savory argues that many environmental and social crises stem from the way institutions develop policy rather than from a lack of knowledge or good intentions. Drawing on experiences as an ecologist, farmer, parliamentarian, and founder of holistic management, he discusses scientific dogma, biodiversity loss, the limitations of modern political systems, and the ideas behind his new memoir, UnSavory. Allan challenges listeners to think beyond regenerative agriculture alone and consider how decision-making structures influence the future of civilization itself.Allan is a Zimbabwean ecologist, farmer, former parliamentarian, and founder of holistic management. Trained in zoology and botany, he spent decades studying wildlife, grassland ecosystems, and desertification, leading to groundbreaking work in regenerative land management. After serving as a Member of Parliament and opposition leader during Zimbabwe’s civil war, he was exiled in 1979 and continued developing his ideas internationally. Allan later co-founded both the Africa Centre for Holistic Management and the Savory Institute. His TED Talk on holistic grazing has been viewed more than 9 million times, and his 2026 memoir, UnSavory: African Stories of Wildlife, War, and the Birth of Holistic Management, explores the experiences that shaped his life’s work.Learn more & connect:Allan Savory TED Talk: How to Fight Desertification and Reverse Climate ChangeSavory InstituteUnSavory: African Stories of Wildlife, War, and the Birth of Holistic ManagementAfrica Centre for Holistic ManagementAllan Savory Uncensored BlogDiscover more about Regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects.Dive into the Twelve Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet.Fulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass.Ready to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute training session with Matthieu for immediate results.

“Let’s stop doing the research and let’s actually execute on it and build something.”Food systems fail when they deliver calories without dignity, convenience, or nutrition. Real access means healthy food that fits people’s daily lives, budgets, culture, and time constraints. When communities lack nearby fresh options, preventable disease rises while local farmers struggle. Regenerative solutions work best when health care, agriculture, retail, and community trust are designed to support one another instead of operating in silos.Eli Moraru explains how those failures became the foundation for a new model in Philadelphia. After seeing families offered raw food boxes that were hard to use, he began building a neighborhood grocer where SNAP users can access healthy ingredients and legally exchange them for hot ready meals. Eli shares how financing barriers, policy gaps, and outdated assumptions were overcome by combining workforce training, health partnerships, and direct purchasing from regenerative farms.Eli is the Co-Founder and President of The Community Grocer, a nonprofit building neighborhood-based food systems that connect regenerative farmers, healthcare, and local access. An award-winning social entrepreneur focused on food justice and community-led change, Eli was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 Honoree and received the Penn President’s Sustainability Prize for his work redesigning how healthy food reaches underserved communities.https://www.thecommunitygrocer.org/Explore these valuable resources to further your journey in regenerative design:Discover more about Regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects. https://www.paulownia-la.com/.Dive into the Twelve Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.com/.Fulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.com/.Ready to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute training session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams.

“The industrial food system is really good at producing calories… it’s not great at producing nutritious food”Regenerative agriculture challenges the dominant narrative around food, climate, and land use by reframing farming as an ecological system rather than an industrial process. Instead of removing animals, this approach integrates them intentionally to rebuild soil, enhance biodiversity, and restore degraded landscapes. The conversation emphasizes that many environmental problems attributed to livestock are actually the result of poor management practices. Real solutions are context-specific, requiring local adaptation, ecological literacy, and a systems-thinking mindset that prioritizes long-term resilience over short-term efficiency.Robb Wolf shares how his journey from biochemistry into health and nutrition led him to question mainstream dietary and environmental assumptions. He explains that well-managed grazing systems can rehabilitate land and produce nutrient-dense food while highlighting the industrial food system’s strength in calories—but weakness in nutrition and ecological health. He also underscores the importance of adaptability in both individuals and systems.Robb is a former research biochemist, two-time New York Times bestselling author, and co-author of Sacred Cow. He is widely known for his work in evolutionary nutrition and for advocating regenerative agriculture as a solution to both human and planetary health challenges.Learn more & connect:Sacred Cow by Robb Wolf & Diana RodgersRevolutionary solutions to modern life: https://robbwolf.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/robb-wolf-008b996a/Also in this episode:Alan Savory TED TalkExplore these valuable resources to further your journey in regenerative design:Discover more about Regenerative design at Paulownia Landscape Architects. https://www.paulownia-la.com/.Dive into the Twelve Laws of Nature and unlock the secrets of harmonizing with our planet at https://www.12lawsofnature.com/.Fulfill your garden aspirations with expert guidance from the Garden of Your Dreams masterclass at https://www.gardenofyourdreams.com/.Ready to take actionable steps towards your dream garden? Book a complimentary 30-minute training session with Matthieu for immediate results: https://calendly.com/garden-of-your-dreams.