How can listening to hidden sounds inspire ways to design regeneratively beyond just human needs? This workshop explores how listening to human and non-human perspectives can inform regenerative design. Sound is vibrations of energy through air, materials and liquids. It is invisible and can be intangible yet reveals evidence of life.

Participants will join a guided, collective sound-walk in the neighbourhood, listening through Silent Disco headphones and specialised microphones that detect sounds outside typical human hearing ranges, such as trees, soil, and underground water flows. Through curiosity and playful prompts, participants are invited to re-imagine their creative practice with a non-human collaborator by recording and sharing observations.

By the end, each participant will take home a personalised booklet with regenerative inspirations for their own future practice, plus access to a ‘MtH track list’ on Soundcloud. The practice demonstrates how design can work with living networks, rather than simply drawing from them.

By engaging with the more-than-human world, participants explore ways to honour other beings that have adapted to shared places before humans arrived. The workshop is suitable for designers, architects, and makers curious about ecology and sensory practice.

No prior knowledge needed. Includes approximately 45 minutes of walking in uneven urban terrain. Participants are invited to bring sunscreen, water, good walking shoes and weather-suitable clothing that don’t make much noise while moving. 

Disclaimer: some sounds may need to be pre-recorded alongside live-listening due to unpredictable environments.

Anna Bertmark is a Swedish PhD design researcher at Lancaster University and an award-winning sound designer. Bridging ecoacoustics and regenerative design, she explores how listening to the more-than-human world can inform design practice. She contributed to the research team for the Interspecies exhibition at MAC/CCB, Lisbon.