I am not from Kaua‘i. That feels important to say first.

When Kaua‘i Federal Credit Union was repurposing an old furniture store in Kapa‘a into an economic resilience center called Kalukalu @ 1624, I was invited to join them as a regenerative designer.

However, I quickly learned that regenerative design arrived here two thousand years before I did. The problem was, it was rapidly degrading.

Kaua‘i is one of the most beautiful places on Earth – and one of the most divided. Billionaires buy land for retreats while natives are being pushed to the mainland. Now, more Hawaiians live off the islands than on them, and the knowledge that once sustained Hawai‘i is either awkwardly exported to places it doesn’t belong or absorbed by tourists who can’t grasp its depth. As the people are displaced, so is their wisdom.

Still, if you listen closely – to the people, to the plants, to the ocean – the island is not dead. The wealth of Hawai‘i has never been its resorts or its real estate. Its wealth is in its knowing: centuries of understanding how to live on a volcano in the middle of the ocean and thrive. It’s not just resilience. To me, it’s genius.

When I start any design process, I begin with what I call The Living Story. It’s a way of asking what the land wants, what it will support, and what it will permit. It’s rooted in the remembering that humans are nature, that nature grows for free, and that our job is to add to the beauty. The most important part of the Story is listening: to the place and to the people who’ve had the longest relationship with it.

As we engaged the Indigenous Knowledge holders, one of the most powerful Hawaiian proverbs that emerged was: he wa‘a he moku, he moku he wa‘a – “the canoe is the island, and the island is the canoe.” Like the canoe, when you’re isolated on a volcano, every resource matters. You work with what you have. You cooperate. You listen.

I’m still learning how to listen.

From this perspective, Hawai’ians have created incredible regenerative designs. For example, the Alakoko Fishpond – a five-acre pond near Līhu‘e – that once sustained huge populations of aquatic life and therefore human life. Part of the ingenious design was an original 2,700 foot rock wall that had since been buried under invasive mangroves, until locals began restoring it. In October of 2022, a call was made to get 2,000 people to rebuild the rock walll, and through my relationship with Mason Chock, I was invited to join. 

Alakoko Fish Pond

When I arrived early, some locals seemed skeptical. One joked, “Another haole here to tell us how to build our wall”, which I thought was fair. History has given every reason for that skepticism. Foreigners have been telling Hawaiians what to do for centuries. And for centuries, we’ve seen the Hawaiian islands decline. 

By midday of the rebuild, the sun was high, and a sea of people were working shoulder to shoulder, passing stones through the water. We didn’t finish the wall that day, but that wasn’t the point. The point was being together – rebuilding not just a fishpond, but a connection to the past, the future, and a relationship to place.

Nearly 2000 people rebuilding a 800 year-old rock wall at Alakoko Fish Pond

When the work ended, a call rose from the hillside, followed by chants and hula. Locals slapped the stones in rhythm, blessing them. It was ceremony. It was community.

A small section of the 2,700 foot rock wall

It was one of the most profound lessons in my career. In my PhD, I explored how Western systems have been built on Newtonian ideas of separation, control, and prediction. On seeing humans as a dominant species. Yet, as the tide rose, I was watching a 2000-year-old society build a structure that danced with its environment and regenerated its environment. Through the chants and the act of building itself, I could see that it was also an act of regenerating a culture. And design became much bigger than technical engineering. 

For Native Hawaiians, this was part of their history. For me, it is a lesson still being learned.

One of the key principles of He wa‘a he moku, he moku he wa‘a is that we’re all in this canoe together. Our survival depends on how well we work together, with what we have. Whether it’s a canoe, an island, or the planet.

Kaua‘i, to me, is not a postcard of paradise. It’s a teacher – showing the world what it means to live regeneratively, not in theory, but in practice. Rock by rock. Hand by hand.

Letting nature lead. And letting those with the longest relationship with the land lead how we think, behave, and create, in harmony.