What We Do

As a future architecture studio we radically imagine new ways of being that become grounded in reality. We build scaffolding that becomes infrastructure for systems change, collaboratively in partnership with local communities on the ground, with universities and institutions, with impact investors and many partners.

We have worked with communities around the world, from high tech and capital intensive settings in San Francisco and New York, marginalized communities like those on the east side of Kansas City, as well as working along side some of the poorest communities in Latin America and India. Learning from 25+ years experience we employ “future architecture” to reimagine and build the systems we desperately need NOW.

Examples include working with local leaders to imagine their city block 20’s years in the future using a process called “world building;” developing regional, national or global infrastructure connecting impact investors and entrepreneurs in co-founding what became the defining impact investment convening (SOCAP); piloting a resource pipeline called “The Current” to allow individuals, philanthropists, institutions and othesr to create a pool of unrestricted resources to communities to self-direct. (The Current is a project of Yoxi and the Guild of Future Architects).

FUTURE ARCHITECTURE 

beaming is a “family business” with an evolving group of independentdent partners who trust each other, speak to each other frankly and authentically while sharing strategies for systems change. Underlying all of this is a shared passion for co-developong living operating systems inspired by nature and indigenous ways of seeing all life and life processes as interconnected. Specifically. we support both local and global communities and partners in four ways:

Mapping & Pattern Recognition

Framing and defining the whole environment and context enabling stakeholders to visualize “what wants to be” connecting the dots from historical context to building their shared vision of a healthy environments and thriving places.

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

The art of group listening and group thinking using, storytelling, world building, data, AI, machine learning and personal interviews to develop an array of stakeholder footprints allowing us to discover the boundaries for collaboration and least noise pathways to consensus,

Urban & Rural Acupuncture

We leverage the above to support a community’s ability to identify meaningful entry points and assets to be lifted up. We also identify blockages that exist in the flow of talent, access, resources and knowledge. This ultimately allows for community self governance with guides, rules and a thriving culture for adapting to ongoing change and context as a regenerative innovation ecosystem.

regenerative finance (Re-FI)

The elephant in the room is our siloed financial system. We advise and co-develop blended pools of capital leveraging alternative financing structures attuned to and ultimately defined by the communities doing the work on the ground, and with impact investors committed to new ways of investing for long term outcomes.

SPEAKING & CONSULTING 

Mark has been a speaker for events all over the world and regularly shares a futurist perspective grounded in what works on the ground. Please reach out at mark@beaming.com

REGEN THINKING by Mark Beam (2022)  

As the decade begins there is more clarity than ever on how to re-engineer the systems intended to support us as a species to create climate resiliency and a more inclusive economy. The greatest challenge will be to inspire the shift in consciousness necessary to allow for new behaviors to take hold leading to direct participation in coordinated actions that bring new shared futures into fruition. This requires regenerative thinking:

Quantum

Our leading edge scientific understanding of the nature of reality - quantum physics and relativity theory suggest a profound move away from fragmented, siloed ways of thinking toward wholeness. As quantum physicist David Bohm said, “mind and matter are not separate substances. Rather, they are different aspects of one whole and unbroken movement.”

Regenerative

The practice of regenerative design offers a direct pathway from our siloed, industrial age systems in favor of a quantum paradigm and the interconnectedness of all living things. Regeneration means putting life at the center of every action and decision, where humanity is a net positive to nature.

Transformative

The act of observation and perception changes the outcome in quantum physics. Likewise transformational narratives and storytelling play a vital role in shifting the human and cultural mindset to inspire and enable material transformation - that is, the infrastructure and systems that in turn energize the transition.

Communal

Human Beings have always organized themselves within tribes or small communities where a feeling of fellowship with others is found, a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. These are transmitted through all of our senses. While this can occur virtually, this energizing fellowship is best experienced in local, face to face interactions allowing us to tap into the genius of interdependence.

Imaginative

The defining feature that distinguish man from other living things is our capacity for radical imagination and mobility allowing for information gathering, planning and problem solving. We must rely on these traits as never before in building community resiliency and well being for future generations, starting with the most marginalized.

Experiential

It has been shown that in order for people to be moved, they must find meaning in the action themselves. Actions change our beliefs and action in pursuit of a goal stimulates neural rewards. Mose often we change when the people around us change. Ideally this means learning experientially with others.

Relational

The complexity and interconnectedness of living systems requires means of communication that enable individual actors to find their place and function within the whole. Making the transition to a new, regenerative social economy will require new mediums of communication that tap into our natural, human sense-making potential, beyond the linear- visual. As Marshal McLuhan noted the simultaneity of our electric information age, the feeling of everything happening at once (present shock) requires a new kind of sensory awareness.