Have we passed the point where a sustainable approach is enough, or do we need to design new processes in order to heal the spaces we live in?

This week (14 April 2026) FabLab was visited (under the Faculty of Architecture’s Erasmus+ exchange programme) by prof.dr. Delfina Fantini van Ditmar of the Royal College of Art in London, who leads research into the design of regenerative processes and collaborates within Fab City’s global activities.

It was a chance to get to know their work better, and also to share what FabLab does to strengthen local ecosystems – in the urban context through Fab City, and in rural and remote areas. Our Adriatic GreenLab initiative, focused on the islands, is exactly where our interests meet and where there is room for future collaboration.

This is a new moment for FabLab’s work, in which the goal of building local ecosystems as drivers of development is not only about sustainability: development is also directed towards healing the community’s environmental and natural challenges as well as its economic and social ones.

We also touched on the question of who can devise these new processes, and how to educate or motivate people for visionary and ambitious work.

That was an opportunity to share our possible answer through the Designing the Future Academy, which FabLab has been developing and extending over recent years, currently through the DiSTT project – and the regenerative approach opens up new ways of thinking about it.

We are glad of the interest in working together in future on building communities that are more resilient to the challenges ahead.

https://www.rca.ac.uk/more/staff/dr-delfina-fantini-van-ditmar