Image: Amos Chapple
One of the great ironies of the climate crisis is this: the people who have contributed least to environmental destruction are often those living most closely with its consequences. Less widely acknowledged is another truth – many of these same communities hold the knowledge systems that could have prevented the crisis in the first place.
Long before sustainability entered the design lexicon, Indigenous cultures across the world were practising regenerative ways of making, building and growing. Their technologies were not extractive, disposable or energy intensive. They were place-specific, adaptive and deeply attuned to natural cycles. In other words, they were designed to last.
Today, as designers confront the limits of synthetic materials and linear production systems, Indigenous design traditions offer more than inspiration. They offer leadership.
Knowledge rooted in place
Across Tanzania, the Chagga people have cultivated Kihamba forest gardens on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro for more than a century. These layered agricultural systems combine banana trees, coffee and grains to support both biodiversity and a growing population, all without depleting the soil.
In the Amazon Basin, the Kayapó use controlled fire to regenerate land, enrich soil and protect vast areas of rainforest from deforestation. In Iran, ancient qanat systems – underground tunnels and vertical shafts that channel water using gravity alone – provide reliable access to clean water without pumps or energy input.
And in Meghalaya, India – one of the wettest regions on Earth – the Khasi people have trained rubber fig trees to grow into living bridges. Over decades, the roots strengthen and intertwine, creating structures capable of withstanding monsoon rains and surging rivers. These bridges are not only functional and visually striking, they improve with age.
As Emily Farra writes for Vogue, these communities were embracing regenerative agriculture, zero-waste living and nature-based solutions long before they became twenty-first century buzzwords. Their work challenges the assumption that progress must be high-tech, disruptive or new.
Lo-TEK and rethinking innovation
Architect and researcher Julia Watson describes these systems through the lens of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, or TEK, in her book Lo-TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism. The term reframes what is often dismissed as ‘low-tech’ as something far more sophisticated – knowledge refined over generations through close observation of land, climate and materials.
Watson argues that Indigenous design represents an evolutionary extension of life in symbiosis with nature. Rather than imposing uniform solutions, these approaches respond to specific environments and cultural values. They blur the line between technology, spirituality and stewardship.
This perspective is particularly relevant to contemporary design, where the dominance of synthetic, oil-derived materials has normalised short lifespans and high environmental cost. In contrast, Indigenous material choices prioritise renewability, repair and return to the earth.
Image: Amos Chapple
Natural fibres at the centre
Natural fibres have always played a central role in Indigenous making. Wool, cotton, hemp, bamboo and leather are valued not just for availability, but for performance. They breathe, insulate, age gracefully and biodegrade. They can be repaired, reused and eventually reintegrated into natural systems.
These qualities stand in stark contrast to many modern materials designed for speed and scale rather than longevity. As synthetic fibres now account for the majority of materials used across fashion and interiors, the environmental consequences are becoming impossible to ignore – from microplastic pollution to waste accumulation.
Indigenous design reminds us that material intelligence matters. It shows that durability is a form of sustainability, and that natural fibres are not a compromise but a considered choice.
From domination to collaboration
A defining characteristic of Indigenous design is the understanding that humans are part of the environment, not separate from it. This worldview challenges centuries of Western industrial thinking shaped by colonisation and extraction.
As Watson notes, we are living in an age saturated with information, yet starved of wisdom. The climate crisis has exposed the limitations of solutions born from the same ideology that caused the damage. High-tech innovation alone cannot repair what disconnection from nature has broken.
Listening to Indigenous communities is not about replication or appropriation. It is about learning how to collaborate with natural systems rather than dominate them, and recognising that progress does not have to mean more, faster or newer.
Learning to listen
For designers working with natural materials today, this is both an invitation and a responsibility. Indigenous design traditions challenge us to rethink what we value – not just in materials, but in time, care and repair.
If natural fibres are to form the foundation of a more responsible design future, then Indigenous knowledge must be recognised as central, not supplementary. These communities do not just inform sustainability. They lead it.
The question is whether the global design industry is ready to follow.
Sources:
https://www.vogue.com/article/julia-watson-lo-tek-indigenous-design-architecture-climate-change
https://www.idsa.org/indigenous-peoples-day-regenerative-design-inextricable-indigenous-design/
