OUR MISSION IS TO SUPPORT A GREAT SHIFT TOWARDS HUMAN PROGRESS THAT WORKS FOR ALL OF LIFE.
We act as a partner and practice ground for people, projects and organisations working towards Life-Centred progress.
We offer workshops, we host collaborative leadership journeys called ‘Practice Circles’, and we design and facilitate larger programmes to help Life-Centred progress to thrive.
We have worked on epic projects, connect amazing people, and we want to help others asking big questions and holding audacious ambitions to shift systems for the good of all of life.
In practice, we help to explore, to design, to experiment, to create, to transform, and to let go of what must pass.
We work with life’s wisdom to plan, evolve, learn together, guide, and facilitate.
We combine old ways of knowing with new ideas to inspire fresh, life-connected systems and cultures.
We believe that if we are to move towards new models of progress, we must work with deep connection and love.
And if we are to meet the challenges of breakdown, we must build webs of refuge, consciousness and care.
These three circles are at the centre of everything we do.
They show a balance of working with Life’s wisdom within ourselves to support Life-Centred work out in the world.
By working with life we look to build capacities for awareness, connection, resilience, adaptability, and internal power and care…
And by doing this, we can guide wiser, more creative, adaptive and resilient human systems as we navigate a more turbulent world.
We are profoundly grateful to the great teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, for planting the seeds of these three circles many moons ago.
THE POTTING SHED
The Potting Shed is a small group created to ponder on how life flows, connect dots and and share thoughts on what to give energy to. This group consists of Andres Roberts, Jean Boulton (working in Complexity), Faye Mingyi (working with Taoist wisdom) and Chiz Williams (working in Creative and Participative Production).
PEOPLE
Founded by Andres Roberts, the STUDIO connects a network of wonderful allies, projects, guides and mentors, committed to Life-Centred progress, able to adapt to support projects in collaborative ways.
DELIVERY PARTNERS
Our delivery partners are a life-affirming group of people who we work with to support the delivery of projects.
They include a family of ventures that form BiCo - a Bio-Leadership Cooperative - and include THE OTHER DADA (Consultancy, Education and Architecture), NOUS ECOSSISTEMA (Design and Biomimicry-Led Social Transformation), TERRA LUPA (Built Environment), COMMON NATURE (Natural Health for All) and FLORA CONSULTORIA (Talent and Decolonisation). We are joined as a group of delivery partners by the brilliant TEALCO and EVOLUTION OD.
FIND OUT MORE…
STUDIO PRINCIPLES
These are the compass points to how we work:
▶DEEP LEARNING
We see all work as processes of learning, and bring questions, tools and methologies drawn from areas of learning and system change to support depth and movement in all of our work. We believe that in a complex world, when no one has the answers, purposeful inquiry is more and more important. We work with inquiry questions to guide and prompt experiments in active and meaningful ways. We always work at the three levels of learning, from the personal, to the collective, to the systemic.
▶FULL HUMAN EXPERIENCE
We believe that the purpose of life is to live it well, while not causing harm to the life systems we are part of. We believe that human beings have many ways of knowing and connecting with the world, and that the neglect of these has created harm to ourselves, our social systems, and the wider world we are part of. Our work looks to work with many forms of human knowing, and it is dedicated to enjoying life, caring for it, sharing it and celebrating it.
▶ ECOSYSTEM APPROACHES
We understand that all things in our world exist because of the relationships between them. No person, no project, not change, no aspect of nature exists by itself. We bring a deep ‘ecosystem’ perspective to our work, developing ideas, projects and movements through principles of interconnection and intentional emergence - the creation of better things through curation of connections. In practice, this looks like the creation of collaborative networks, supported in deeper forms of learning, and different quality of space to support life-centred outcomes for the world.
▶HONESTY WITH WONDER
We believe it is important to be truthful and honest with the science of our times, and the reality of ecological and social erosion. Still believing in the wonder of life, we take a position in carrying purpose, love, light to the shadows and challenges of our time. In practice, this combines working with both purpose and curiosity, with concern and joy, with urgency and love.
ABOUT ANDRES ROBERTS
Andres was born in Colombia and brought up there, and in Malaysia, and in Birkenhead, in the North West of England. He has worked for 25 years on themes of wholeness, learning, systems-change, purpose, and connection. He has catalysed, designed and guided groundbreaking, life-centred projects including those we share on this site - the Bio-Leadership Project, the Patagonia Earth University, the Earth Funding Lab and more. He has supported leadership and team development work across a range of organisations from the big, like Natura & Co and Aviva Investors, to the local, like Better Food. Some of the deepest aspects of his work lie in guiding Nature Quests, profound, soulful immersions in nature to support presence, perspective, balance, resilience, connection and care for life. He loves the sea, music, the garden and a bit of stillness. He is inquiring more and more into how to re-pattern internal traits, how to cultivate collective peace, and how to ‘grow down’. He is a very lucky husband and father, son and brother, and a more hapless Evertonian.
