(Re)connecting community around Nature-inspired Design

How might we (re)connect and (re)activate a community around Nature-Centered Innovation?

In 2023, we began building this community, BIO LAB, with which we currently develop this learning and connection experience in Nature. Year after year, new people have joined, and others have returned for the experience, all sharing a common purpose: to meet others who share their values but complement each other in knowledge and approaches, and to learn together while disconnecting from the noise, the pace of production, and the artificial environment.

2025 was a year of uncertainty and many changes, so reactivating the BIO LAB community was quite a challenge. Organizing a multi-day event didn’t seem feasible; and yet, we didn’t want to give up our annual gathering. How could we reactivate the community without forcing schedules?

BIO LAB 2025: a one day (re)meeting

We designed this edition’s experience as a one-day gathering at the restored Valencian farmhouse Casa Magnolia. We established the itinerary for this day as follows:

Welcome to the Regenerative Economy

We started our day with a warm welcome accompanied by coffee, organic tea provided by Herbes del Moli, and food. A brief collaborative activity facilitated by Alba Tormo (Emovem) helped break the ice among attendees and set the day off with the best energy.

Then, around the coffee table and under the Magnolia tree, Pedro Sáez Martínez (Monnou) introduced the Regenerative Economy, discussing the Triple Bottom Line at BIO LAB and explaining the cycles of the Circular Economy (biological cycle and technical cycle) that the day’s workshops would be linked to.

The Biological Cycle: paper pulp and anthotype laboratory

Alba Martínez (Sirope Lab) and Alex Terol led the morning workshops. These two workshops, which connected with each other, were tied to the biological cycle of the circular economy: producing biomaterials with paper pulp and natural printing through anthotype.

The Sirope Lab workshop enabled the community to create their own objects, from new sheets of recycled paper to three-dimensional products like pencil holders or jewelry boxes. All based on paper pulp from already used paper, which, if not printed with environmentally toxic inks, is easily biodegradable (and also comes from cellulose, a bio-based and abundant raw material).

Alex’s workshop then allowed participants to print using anthotype on different surfaces, even applying these techniques to the recycled paper or other objects made in the previous workshop. Unlike cyanotype, anthotype does not use chemicals harmful to the environment: all materials are organic and harmless to nature, coming from bio-based sources like turmeric or beetroot.

The Technical Cycle: ethical technology think-tank

The afternoon workshop focused on the other cycle of the circular economy, where what is produced can no longer return to Nature in the same form. “You can’t unscramble an omelet and get the original eggs back.”

We worked with “techno-mass” (instead of “bio-mass”), and here we couldn’t just talk about hardware: the digital world is now a particularly relevant part of everything we produce, in the products and services we create and use.

This workshop, again led by Pedro (Monnou), started with a basic design tool: the “Service Blueprint.” It’s similar to a User Journey or Customer Journey but more comprehensive. Participants began the workshop by mapping their own User Journey, reflecting on their daily experience with… their own mobile phones.

To foster mobility of ideas, we also proposed doing the activity physically, walking around the space to represent that journey. This generated an initial trail of yellow post-its representing everyday experiences with our mobile phones (products and services, and the features they offer). Then we expanded this map on the floor, looking forward and backward to include what happens before and after these devices reach our hands and are used by us—the entire lifecycle. On the sides, we added ripple effects of social impact (blue post-its) and environmental impact (green post-its) related to the creation and use of these devices, both from the physical (hardware) and digital (software and “cloud”) realms.

Finally, we grouped ideas to focus on a couple of challenges to address, and the participating community eagerly brainstormed alternative systems that could harness the positive benefits of these technologies while minimizing negative impacts.

A space to share

BIO LAB is not just workshops and training activities. It is a space to (re)connect. That’s why we practiced yoga and meditation, shared consciously prepared meals, and left space to get to know each other more deeply, debate, or simply exchange experiences.

BIO LAB 2025 ended with an intimate dinner under the Magnolia tree, giving a fitting close to such an intense day.