The Living Lexicon was a short collaborative project between MA Regenerative Design and the Design Innovation Group. Each week we were given a prompt or activity to respond to that allowed us to explore the practical processes of designing regeneratively. The prompts included “Who is your neighbour? Go out and explore the practice of being neighbours (human/non-human)”, “What is the language we use to express ourselves and engage with the more than human world?” and “How are you engaging with the stories, needs, capacities and wisdom of place and species?”

In response, I went through a research process to find out more about the apple tree in the garden. Despite it being my neighbour, I knew very little about it beyond that it produces eating apples in August. Throughout the project, I visited Apple Day at my local library, spoke to (human) neighbours about the relationship they had with their apple trees, mapped the apple trees in my neighbourhood, investigated some of the heritage and celebrations we share with orchards and made it my mission to learn the name of my apple tree. After examining the features of the fruit and the tree, I concluded our apple tree was called ‘Laxton's Fortune’. Laxton’s Fortune is named after the Laxton Brothers Nursery where the cultivar was developed. There's an old wives tale that throwing apple peel over your shoulder will reveal the initial of your true love. Inspired by this idea, I responded with a font made of apple peel to summarise some of the words that were frequently appearing within my research - the lexicon of apples.

In the final week, we were encouraged to think about how we can make the discussions and learnings from the collaboration tangible. I produced a viewing frame and pamphlet to encourage people to engage in local, seasonal and functional exchanges using their non-human neighbours as a starting point – mirroring the process I had undertaken with the apple tree.