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William Andrews McDonough is an American architect, designer, and author. McDonough is founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, co-founder of McDonough MBDC, and co-author of '' Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things'' and ''The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance.'' McDonough has focused his career on creating a beneficial footprint. He espouses the idea that it is possible to design materials, systems, companies, products, buildings, and communities that continuously improve over time.


Biography

McDonough was born in
Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
. He was the son of an American
Seagram The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the ...
executive, and attended
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
and
Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
. In 1981, McDonough founded his architectural practice. His first major commission was the 1984 Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) Headquarters. The EDF's requirement of good indoor air quality in the structure exposed McDonough to the importance of
sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The ...
. McDonough's architecture practice, William McDonough + Partners, operates in
Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen C ...
. McDonough moved his practice from
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
to Charlottesville in 1994 when he was appointed as the Dean of the School of Architecture at the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...
. He served as Dean until 1999 and has since served as a professor of business administration and an alumni research professor. He is chief executive of McDonough Innovation, which provides high-level consulting to global companies, organizations, and governments, and he co-founded the Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute. He is also co-founder of MBDC, based in Charlottesville, Virginia. A number of large corporate projects for The Gap, Nike, and Herman Miller led to his commission for a 20-year, US$2 billion environmental re-engineering of the Ford Motor Company's iconic River Rouge Plant in
Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States per ...
. The project included rolling out the world's largest " living roof" in October 2002. The roof of the 1.1 million square foot (100,000 m2) Dearborn truck assembly plant was covered with more than 10 acres (40,000 m2) of sedum, a low-growing ground cover. In 1996, McDonough became the first and only individual recipient of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development. In 1999 ''
Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...
'' called him "Hero for the Planet". In 2002 he co-authored '' Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things''. In 2004, he received a
National Design Award The American National Design Awards, founded in 2000, are funded and awarded by Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. There are seven official design categories, and three additional awards. Supplemental awards can be given at the discretio ...
for environmental design from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. He is also a Senior Fellow of the
Design Futures Council The Design Futures Council is an interdisciplinary network of design, product, and construction leaders exploring global trends, challenges, and opportunities to advance innovation and shape the future of the industry and environment. Members inclu ...
. McDonough was also a senior advisor and Venture Partner at VantagePoint Capital Partners, one of the largest venture capital investors in
clean technology Clean technology, in short cleantech, is any process, product, or service that reduces negative environmental impacts through significant energy efficiency improvements, the sustainable use of resources, or environmental protection activities. Cl ...
.


Design philosophy

William McDonough and his architecture and urban design firm, William McDonough + Partners, ground their work in Cradle to Cradle Design, a philosophy developed in the 2002 book, '' Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things''. The goal is to frame design as "a beneficial, regenerative force—one that seeks to create ecological footprints to delight in, not lament." The primary goal of Cradle to Cradle Design is to shift thinking from doing "less bad" to being "more good". McDonough has also articulated the Cradle to Cradle Design framework as The Five Goods™ (Good Materials, Good Economy, Good Energy, Good Water, Good Lives) to help companies focus and evaluate their efforts on becoming "more good". The Five Goods were also designed to offer a streamlined method of addressing each of the 17 UN
Sustainable Development Goals The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked objectives designed to serve as a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future".United Nations (2017) R ...
. The firm's designs are often categorized as
green architecture Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable ...
or
sustainable architecture Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable ...
. The concept, closely linked with green building, is not known for a distinctive visual style, but instead for minimizing the negative environmental impact of a building. McDonough, however, is often quoted as saying the aspiration is to design something like a tree, something that creates good, like oxygen, rather than minimizing negative impact. McDonough's designs use solar and other passive energy efficiency techniques, as illustrated by th
Flow House
designed for the Make It Right Foundation New Orleans. The design incorporates deep overhangs, multiple connections with exterior areas allowing for much daylight and natural ventilation, roof mounted PV panels, water cisterns to harvest rainwater runoff and
rain garden Rain gardens, also called bioretention facilities, are one of a variety of practices designed to increase rain runoff reabsorption by the soil. They can also be used to treat polluted stormwater runoff. Rain gardens are designed landscape sites ...
s to absorb any storm runoff. In 1984, McDonough and his colleagues designed the Environmental Defense Fund office in New York City. Since then, William McDonough + Partners has been responsible for other milestones in the movement, such as 901 Cherry Avenue in San Bruno, California, completed in 1997 for
Gap, Inc. The Gap, Inc., commonly known as Gap Inc. or Gap (stylized as GAP), is an American worldwide clothing and accessories retailer. Gap was founded in 1969 by Donald Fisher and Doris F. Fisher and is headquartered in San Francisco, California. The ...
; it is now home to Google's
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
. The building features a
green roof A green roof or living roof is a roof of a building that is partially or completely covered with vegetation and a growing medium, planted over a waterproofing membrane. It may also include additional layers such as a root barrier and draina ...
that helps to prevent water runoff, insulates the building from noise, and provides a habitat for several species, and received the BusinessWeek/Architectural Record Design Award in 1998. The Bernheim Arboretum Visitor Center for the
Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest is a 16,137 acre (57 km2) arboretum, forest, and nature preserve located in Clermont, Kentucky (25 miles south of Louisville, Kentucky, United States). Bernheim was founded in 1929 by Isaac Wolfe Bern ...
, in Clermont, Kentucky, completed in 2005, blurs the line between outdoor and indoor space. This project, like others designed by William McDonough + Partners, draws heavily on the biophilia hypothesis—the study of the human desire and physiological need for contact with nature. The building was awarded the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum rating. Together with his architecture firm, McDonough developed a master plan for the design of Park 20, 20, the first large-scale urban development in the
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that adopts the Cradle to Cradle philosophy. William McDonough co-founded the Make It Right Foundation New Orleans with
Brad Pitt William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Awar ...
. This is an effort to rebuild the
Lower Ninth Ward The Lower Ninth Ward is a neighborhood in the city of New Orleans, Louisiana. As the name implies, it is part of the 9th Ward of New Orleans. The Lower Ninth Ward is often thought of as the entire area within New Orleans downriver of the Indust ...
in New Orleans. Dedicated in 2012, the NASA Ames Research Center's Sustainability Base is designed to harvest more energy than it needs to operate and to cleanse its own water. It was designed to meet a conventional budget and tight timeline, be a test bed for NASA technologies, and it exceeds LEED Platinum metrics. The facility is designed to "learn"—and continuously improve—over time. McDonough addressed the Arctic Circle China Forum in
Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...
and laid out a framework for how to "bring back breathing cities" in May 2019. This system seeks to avoid focusing on releasing less carbon and fewer toxic chemicals into the air and instead shifts to integrating renewable energy such as geothermal as a transformative solution to air pollution and climate change. This vision encourages cities to break out of the urban linear flow of "take, make, waste" and embrace a circular flow of "take, make, retake, remake, restore" to implement a Circular Carbon Economy. In June 2019 William McDonough delivered a keynote address at Sustainable Brands on "A Bold New Vision for the Collection, Processing, Circularity and Productivity of Plastic Waste". As a step toward solving the plastics crisis, McDonough directed the audience to "refuse refuse", or reject plastics which are not reusable, recyclable, compostable, and recoverable.


Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program

On May 20, 2010, at Google Corporate Headquarters, the
Googleplex The Googleplex is the corporate headquarters complex of Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc. It is located at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway in Mountain View, California. The original complex, with of office space, is the company's second l ...
, McDonough announced the launch of the Green Products Innovation Institute, which was later renamed the "Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute". The Institute builds on the 2008 California state law that establishes the nation's first green chemistry program. The non-profit public/private Institute has received the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program on an exclusive, worldwide basis to accelerate the transition to safe material use and increased material reutilization. Executives from Google, Walmart, YouTube, Shaw Inc., and Herman Miller Inc. joined McDonough for the announcement. The Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program is based on five attributes, Material Health, Circular Economy,
Renewable Energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...
, Water Stewardship, and Social Fairness. On June 18, 2019, McDonough delivered a plenary at GreenBiz's inaugural Circularity '19 conference, where he spoke about the program encouraging a safe then circular economy to prevent recirculating harmful chemicals, which he refers to as retox.


World Economic Forum

At the January 2014
World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental and lobbying organisation based in Cologny, canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German engineer and economist Klaus Schwab. The foundation, ...
(WEF) Annual Meeting held in Davos, Switzerland, William McDonough led the first CEO workshop that was centered around sustainable design, with an added focus on Cradle to Cradle, The Upcycle, and the circular economy. Prior to the 2014 meeting, McDonough participated in the organizing process in Geneva, when the WEF partnered with the United Nations to review the issue of climate change. It was later determined that climate change and the circular economy would be the main focus of the 2014 WEF meeting. McDonough was appointed as Chair of the Forum's Meta-Council on Circular Economy in July 2014.


Reception

In May 2008, Vanity Fair magazine offered an extensive profile of McDonough, which included a close look at several of his clients and projects, in the piece "Industrial Revolution, Take Two". Similar profiles about McDonough and his work have been published by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'', ''Discover Magazine'', and ''Time'' magazine. In 2013,
Stanford University Libraries The Stanford University Libraries (SUL), formerly known as "Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources" ("SULAIR"), is the library system of Stanford University in California. It encompasses more than 24 libraries in all. S ...
began the William McDonough "Living Archive". Stanford University Libraries will also host the William A. McDonough Archive (WAMA). This will be a first of a kind, real-time "Living Archive". He was recognized at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as the recipient of the Fortune Award for Circular Economy Leadership for outstanding contribution to the development of a prosperous and sustainable economy. McDonough was named as one of
Fortune Magazine ''Fortune'' is an American multinational business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The ...
's World's 50 Greatest Leaders in 2019 at number 24 in recognition of his contributions to the green building movement, being a leading proponent of the circular economy and his efforts to redesign plastics.


Criticism

After being named one of Fast Company Magazine's "Masters of Design" in 2004, the same magazine followed up in 2008 with a more critical look at McDonough entitled "Green Guru Gone Wrong." Interviewing many of McDonough's former colleagues, the author cited McDonough's failure to have any meaningful impact with his "cradle to cradle" program (certifying just 160 of his planned 30,000 products), his entirely unsustainable suburban lifestyle, his habit of misrepresenting his professional successes, and that he trademarked the term "cradle to cradle" despite that it was coined by Swiss architect Walter Stahel many years beforehand. In 2008 McDonough's Huangbaiyu project was also heavily covered for its many design issues. Some of the design issues raised included conflicts between Feng Shui and passive solar design standards, appending garages although no villagers can afford cars, failing to provide space for grazing livestock, and building the houses out of potentially unsafe compressed coal dust. In 2008, a PBS
Frontline Front line refers to the forward-most forces on a battlefield. Front line, front lines or variants may also refer to: Books and publications * ''Front Lines'' (novel), young adult historical novel by American author Michael Grant * ''Frontlines ...
investigation found that McDonough's poor planning and execution of the project had doomed it to failure from the start.


Completed works

* 901 Cherry Office Building in San Bruno, California the current headquarters of
YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
* Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies * American University School of International Service * Bernheim Arboretum Visitor's Center located at the
Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest is a 16,137 acre (57 km2) arboretum, forest, and nature preserve located in Clermont, Kentucky (25 miles south of Louisville, Kentucky, United States). Bernheim was founded in 1929 by Isaac Wolfe Bern ...
in
Clermont, Kentucky Clermont is a USGS-designated populated place (one of 32) in Bullitt County, Kentucky, United States, south of Louisville. It is an unincorporated community. Geography Clermont is located at (37.5547, -85.3910) and is 531 feet (162 meters) ab ...
* BSH Hausgeräte Office, Park 20, 20 * Ford River Rouge Complex * Fuller Theological Seminary Library * NASA Sustainability Base * Nike European Headquarters * VMware Corporate Campus


Published works

* Braungart, Michael; & McDonough, William (2002). '' Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things''. North Point Press. * Braungart, Michael; & McDonough, William (2013). '' The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability - Designing for Abundance''. North Point Press. * William McDonough (2016) Carbon is not the enemy, ''Nature'' 539, 349–351 (November 17, 2016)


See also

*
Hannover Principles The Hannover Principles is a set of statements about designing buildings and objects with forethought about their environmental impact, their effect on the sustainability of growth, and their overall impact on society. They were first formulated b ...
*
Sustainable design Environmentally sustainable design (also called environmentally conscious design, eco-design, etc.) is the philosophy of designing physical objects, the built environment, and services to comply with the principles of ecological sustainability ...
*
Ecological modernization Ecological modernization is a school of thought that argues that both the state and the market can work together to protect the environment.Mol, A.P.J, G Spaargaren, and D.A Sonnenfeld. “Ecological Modernization Theory: Taking Stock, Moving For ...


References


External links

* William McDonough (2004)
21st Century Design
(accessed March 26, 2008)]
''Balancing Economy, Equity, and Ecology Through Design''
- a speech given on October 15, 2008, for Stanford's Entrepreneurship Corner, with both audio & video
Fast Company: This 'Green Dean' Has a Blueprint for Sustainability

The Next Industrial Revolution
a Documentary film about William McDonough and Michael Braungart]
Video of speech given at GreenBiz 2018 conference

TED Talks: William McDonough on cradle to cradle design
at TED (conference), TED in 2005
Interview with CNN's John Defterios at World Government Summit 2019


2003 interview of McMcDonough in the ''Princeton Independent''
Circular Economy: William McDonough + TriCiclos in Chile
(video)
William McDonough Champions Sustainable Design With the Circular Economy
* {{DEFAULTSORT:McDonough, William 1951 births American architects American non-fiction environmental writers Dartmouth College alumni Living people Solar building designers Sustainability advocates University of Virginia faculty Yale School of Architecture alumni Yale University alumni