William McDonough

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The Stone Age did not end because humans ran out of stones. It ended because it was time for a re-think about how we live.

William McDonough (born 21 February 1951) is an American architect and founding principal of William McDonough + Partners, whose career is focused on designing environmentally sustainable buildings and transforming industrial manufacturing processes, with the twin goals of eliminating pollution and increasing the profits of his clients.


  • If you look at a tree and think of it as a design assignment, it would be like asking you to make something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, provides habitat for hundreds of species, accrues solar energy's fuel, makes complex sugars and food, changes colors with the seasons, creates microclimates, and self-replicates.
    • "William McDonough: Godfather of Green", WNYC Studio 360 (18 March 2008).
  • There's probably 5000 times more solar energy than the humans will ever need. We could cover our highways with solar collectors to make ribbons of energy, and I think that it's really the largest job creation program in the history of the planet that's in front of us. It's a celebration of the abundance of human creativity combined with the abundance of the natural world.
  • I can't imagine something being beautiful at this point in history if it's destroying the planet or causing children to get sick. How can anything be beautiful if it's not ecologically intelligent at this point?

Quotes about McDonough[edit]

  • In addition to describing the hopeful, nature-inspired design principles that are making industry both prosperous and sustainable, the book itself is a physical symbol of the changes to come. It is printed on a synthetic "paper," made from plastic resins and inorganic fillers, designed to look and feel like top quality paper while also being waterproof and rugged. And the book can be easily recycled in localities with systems to collect polypropylene, like that in yogurt containers. This "treeless" book points the way toward the day when synthetic books, like many other products, can be used, recycled, and used again without losing any material quality—in cradle-to-cradle cycles.

External links[edit]

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