William Andrews McDonough is an American architect and founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, and co-founder of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) with German chemist Michael Braungart. McDonough's career is focused on designing environmentally sustainable buildings and transforming industrial manufacturing processes.

[edit] Biography

McDonough was born in Tokyo, the son of an American Seagram's executive, and trained at Dartmouth College and Yale University.^[1] In 1981 McDonough founded his architectural practice,^[2] and his first major commission was the 1984 Environmental Defense Fund Headquarters.^[3] The EDF's requirement of good indoor air quality in the structure exposed McDonough to the need for sustainable development.^[4]

McDonough's practice is located in Charlottesville, Virginia, with a small office in San Francisco, California and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.^[5] McDonough moved his practice from New York City to Charlottesville in 1994, when he was appointed as the Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia.^[6] He relinquished this position in 1999 to focus on expanding his professional practice.^{[citation needed]}

A number of large corporate projects for The Gap, Nike, and Herman Miller,^[7] which focused on both a financial and environmental standpoint, led to his commission for a twenty-year, US$2 billion environmental re-engineering of the Ford Motor Company's legendary River Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan. The project included rolling out the world's largest extensive "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.^[8]

In 1996 McDonough became the first and only individual recipient of the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development.^[9] In 1999 Time called him "Hero for the Planet".^[10] In 2002 he wrote (with Michael Braungart) Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. In 2004 he received a National Design Award for environmental design from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.^[11]

McDonough is also a Senior Advisor and Venture Partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners,^[12] one of the largest venture capital investors in clean technology.^[13]

After being named one of Fast Company Magazine's "Masters of Design" in 2004,^[14] the same magazine followed up in 2008 with a more critical look at McDonough entitled "Green Guru Gone Wrong." ^[15] While acknowledging McDonough's contributions to the green movement, the article suggests that McDonough has been overly protective of his certification process, and in some instances has not inspired cooperation with other individuals and businesses. Some examples included McDonough's Huangbaiyu, China project that has not been inhabited due to design flaws, and Nike's shoe project that was not realized due to McDonough's unwillingness to share cradle-to-cradle specifications with suppliers.

[edit] Architectural works

• Ford River Rouge Complex
• Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies
• 901 Cherry Office Building in San Bruno, California the current headquarters of YouTube
• Nike European Headquarters
• Bernheim Arboretum Visitor's Center located at the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Clermont, Kentucky
• NASA Sustainability Base
• Fuller Theological Seminary Library

[edit] Published works

• Braungart, Michael; & McDonough, William (2002). Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point Press. ISBN 0-86547-587-3.

[edit] See also

• Hannover Principles
• Sustainable design
• Next Industrial Revolution
• EPEA

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• William McDonough, 2004, “21st Century Design” (accessed March 26, 2008)
• Balancing Economy, Equity, and Ecology Through Design - a speech given on Oct. 15, 2008 for Stanford's Entrepreneurship Corner, with both audio & video
• Waste = Food Documentary - A documentary on the Cradle to Cradle design concept of Michael Braungart and William McDonough.
• 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 Bioneers 2000 conference
• TED Talks: William McDonough on cradle to cradle design at TED in 2005
• Speech given at the Center for Social Innovation at Stanford in Feb. 2003
• "Buildings Like Trees, Factories Like Forests", 2003 interview of McMcDonough in the Princeton Independent