Who We Are

Carma Lamm - Researcher, Storyteller & Designer

Common Ground gives wings to my passion for connecting resources to people. With the help of many creative regenerative community members, I founded Common Ground to highlight emergent regenerative design as the future framework for living systems design.  Designing for the future becomes better & brighter when we make places that are more interwoven & connected to the natural world. It is challenging work to create places we can fall in love with, but much easier when we engage each other. 

We inspire personal and social development through our regenerative design framework by embracing the process of discovery which reveals that the places we inhabit are unique and spiritually fulfilling.  Personally, we believe that our discovery of and honest representation of the authenticity of a place makes the work that we have done for over 26 years more interesting. I do my most thoughtful design work after actively listening to communities discuss and describe their future hopes for their neighborhoods.  I then strive to integrate these local flavors with interdisciplinary ways to achieve a more livable, satisfyingly rewarding design.  The engineers and architects that collaborate with Common Ground, who find themselves engaged in whole-process learning, are often delighted and enlightened that working with us entails considering factors and inputs that change with every place, every project, every community. 

Bernard J. Lamm, PE - Systems Designer, Natural Philospher

Bernie is a registered Professional Engineer with more than 26 years of experience including regenerative site development; utility corridor design; environmental permitting; water supply engineering; structural engineering; structural acoustics; watershed planning, management and restoration; hydrology and hydraulics; storm water management and sewage facilities planning; floodplain management and river modeling; and environmental site assessments. 

As an engineer and natural philosopher, Bernie understands a key step in making a site restorative, (as opposed to merely sustainable), is the ability to maintain transitions from the built environment to the natural in ways that preserve the capability of ecosystems to self organize and assemble.  This ability is encouraged by designing adequate edge distances that foster the emergence and growth of scaled habitats, nested within transitions from the more manicured to the more “wild”.  Taking design to the next level, "Regenerative" requires engaging stakeholders in the process of discovering the story of place and creating a shared vision of the vitalizing energy of that place to guide design and transformation.

 
His approach to minimizing water use and creative water reuse is holistic and not averse to crossing a building envelope in either direction when appropriate.  Bernie has engineered dozens of innovative stormwater solutions to replicate existing site-specific hydrologic cycles. These have included solar powered pumps, cisterns, green roofs, permeable paving, drip irrigation systems, fog misters, constructed wetlands, flow-through wetlands, grey water systems, rain barrels, and fountains - all with an understanding of obeying nested scales to leverage ecosystem water distribution services within the site.