LOKAL Re:Generative: A Living Journey Across People, Place & Purpose

LOKAL Re:Generative was implemented as a 9-day learning journey during and just after Bangkok Climate Action Week, combining academic dialogue, site visits, workshops, meals, and place-based immersion. The programme was designed to translate regeneration from abstract concept into lived experience across multiple domains including education, urban space, food systems, hospitality, finance, agroforestry, culture, and regional collaboration. Activities were delivered through partnerships with universities, businesses, community organisations, practitioners, and local hosts in both Bangkok and Nakhon Ratchasima.

Day 1 focused on opening connection within the wider Bangkok Climate Action Week ecosystem rather than starting with formal instruction. Participants joined the opening atmosphere of BKKCAW and began forming relationships through informal conversation, shared presence, and early orientation to the week’s purpose. This created social ease and trust, which became an important foundation for the more in-depth learning that followed.

Day 2 morning began at CMMU Mahidol with an academic session on regeneration, co-hosted with the SMAC Sustainability Network. Rosalind Yunibandhu introduced regenerative mind qualities including holism, mutualism, diversity, reflexivity, and agency, while academic and practitioner speakers connected these ideas to Thai case studies and Sufficiency Economy Philosophy. The session positioned regeneration as both inner and systemic change, while creating a bridge between scholarship, lived practice, and Thai intellectual traditions. Day 2 afternoon shifted into urban ecological design through a guided immersion at Benjakitti Forest Park, Bangkok’s flagship Sponge City. Participants learned directly from landscape practitioners how wetlands, walkways, planting, and water systems were designed to support climate adaptation, flood mitigation, biodiversity, and public access. This session made urban resilience visible and tangible, showing how regenerative thinking can be embedded in city infrastructure and public space.

Day 3 focused on regenerative food systems and climate resilience through a session co-hosted with Community Action Hub. Participants engaged with climate data, agricultural disruption, and regenerative farming practices such as composting, biodiversity planting, agroforestry, and food forests, with Thamturakit offering a concrete Thai example rooted in Sufficiency Economy Philosophy. The session closed with a meal from Tham Me Restaurant, allowing participants to experience regenerative values through food, taste, sourcing, and story.

Day 4 morning explored regenerative hospitality and design through dialogue with Koh Jum Beach Villas, Ipse Ipsa Ipsum, Lumatera, III Muses, and BIGL. Speakers shared how hospitality and design can operate as living systems rooted in place, community, material integrity, artisanship, and long-term care rather than extraction or image alone. Day 4 afternoon turned toward regenerative living through a slower, embodied programme centred on Southern Thai food, neighbourhood walking, and gentle reflection. At Pintopor and Wat Dhammamongkol, participants explored how food, movement, rest, and meditation support the inner conditions needed for regenerative work.

Day 5 focused on regenerative business through a facilitated lab at Bangkok 1899 with Anewkind Studio, helping participants translate regenerative values into organisational culture and strategy. A Regenerative Finance Roundtable was also convened at Baan Tepa Culinary Space with leaders from development finance, corporate, civil society, hospitality, and advisory backgrounds. Set in Baan Tepa’s edible garden and paired with a multi-course dinner, the session explored how finance might evolve toward vitality, stewardship, and relational value creation.

Day 6 provided an intentionally lighter but still meaningful form of implementation through an evening at Wasteland Bangkok, a circular bar using food waste in cocktails. Participants connected with the wider climate and creative ecosystem of Bangkok in an informal environment where conversation, rest, and spontaneity could renew energy after several intensive days.

Day 7 took participants from Bangkok to Nakhon Ratchasima for a place-based immersion at Choktawee Agroforestry. Hosted by local family custodians, the morning combined Buddhist philosophy, agroforestry practice, biochar, composting, and soil restoration. The afternoon and evening extended the learning through Korat’s cultural and culinary landscape, including Isaan meals, Khmer heritage sites, a local hotel stay, and a regionally curated dinner.

Day 8 concluded the Korat immersion with a morning visit to Jira Market, where participants experienced regeneration through everyday community life. Seasonal foods, herbal drinks, local trade, and spontaneous social interaction showed how vitality circulates through ordinary acts of cooking, welcoming, selling, tasting, and sharing space.

Day 9 continued the learning arc in a post-week regional dialogue on bioregions co-hosted by Living Story Landscapes and Bangkok Climate Action Week leadership. Practitioners from across Southeast Asia reflected on place-based regeneration, landscape governance, cultural memory, and the possibility of deeper cross-border collaboration.

Across the 9-day implementation period, the project successfully delivered a multi-sector, place-based regenerative learning journey that blended conceptual depth, practical exposure, cultural immersion, and relationship building. The programme reached across disciplines and geographies while remaining grounded in Southeast Asian realities, demonstrating that regeneration can be explored not only through policy and theory, but through business, food, design, finance, ecology, heritage, and everyday life.