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In the end, the question is not, how do we use nature to serve our interests? It's how can we use humans to serve nature's interest?'
William McDonough
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William McDonough
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: February 20
Architect
Designer
Environmentalist
Writer
Tōkyō
William Andrews McDonough
Question
Interest
Use
Nature
Ends
Humans
Interests
Serve
More quotes by William McDonough
I am working right at both the levels- with the most wealthy clients in the world, but also the poorest. I spend half my time designing for people that have nothing.
William McDonough
And to use something as elegant as a tree? Imagine this design assignment: Design something that makes oxygen, sequesters carbon, fixes nitrogen, distills water, makes complex sugars and foods, changes colors with the seasons, and self-replicates. and then why don't we knock that down and write on it?
William McDonough
We celebrate the cherry tree not for its efficiency but for its effectiveness - and for its beauty. Its materials are in constant flow, and all those thousands of useless cherry blossoms look gorgeous. Then they fall to the ground and become soil again, so there's no problem
William McDonough
Honor commerce as the engine of change.
William McDonough
We are proposing buildings that, like trees, are net energy exporters, produce more energy than they consume, accrue and store solar energy, and purify their own waste, water and release it slowly in a purer form.
William McDonough
It's going to sound strange probably. But I really like Frank Gehry's works.
William McDonough
Design is inherently optimistic. That is its power.
William McDonough
I'd so much rather have exciting architecture that causes one to stop, breathe, and reflect on the potential of the human mind, the craft, and exploring things.
William McDonough
To eliminate the concept of waste means to design things-products, packaging, and systems-from the very beginning on the understanding that waste does not exist.
William McDonough
Modern culture appears to have adopted a strategy of tragedy. If we come here and say, I didn't intend to cause global warning, it's not part of my plan, then we realize it's part of our defacto plan because it's the thing that's happening because we have no other plan.
William McDonough
Richard Meier told me, 'Young man, solar energy has nothing to do with architecture.'
William McDonough
If design is the first signal of human intention.
William McDonough
We are not a green standard, we are a quality standard. We're different, we're multi dimensional.
William McDonough
We achieved our mission to the moon. Let's look home from that lofty perch and reimagine our mission on Earth - that is what we need to do here. Together, we can upcycle everything. The world will be better for our positive visions and actions.
William McDonough
Our concept of eco-effectiveness means working on the right things - on the right products and services and systems - instead of making the wrong things less bad. Once you are doing the right things, then doing them right, with the help of efficiency among other tools, makes perfect sense.
William McDonough
So when you see a regulation against lead, because lead is a bad in a regulators mind, what does that mean? You are not telling us what is good, you are just tell us what you don't want, not what you do want.
William McDonough
The problem carbon is that everyone thinks we have an energy problem, we don't. We have plenty of energy. We have a carbon problem. Carbon is a material, so we have a material problem, not an energy problem.
William McDonough
Designers are inherently optimistic people who try to make the world a better place
William McDonough
We prefer to talk about 100% renewable instead of zero carbon. When you say zero carbon, you are not positively defined.
William McDonough
Sustainability takes forever. And that's the point.
William McDonough
