Quote

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?

William McDonough

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

William McDonough
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: February 20
Architect
Designer
Environmentalist
Writer
Tōkyō
William Andrews McDonough
History
Causing
Beautiful
Destroying
Anything
Planet
Children
Planets
Something
Intelligent
Sick
Imagine
Point
Ecologically

More quotes by William McDonough

Image
If design is the first signal of human intention.
William McDonough
Image
We are not a green standard, we are a quality standard. We're different, we're multi dimensional.
William McDonough
Image
If anybody here has trouble with the concept of design humility, reflect on this: It took us 5,000 years to put wheels on our luggage.
William McDonough
Image
If you don't like carbon, if you want to be zero carbon, then you might as well shoot yourself, dry up and blow away because you are carbon.
William McDonough
Image
The surest way to heal an eco-system is to connect it to more of itself.
William McDonough
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I'd rather have that dialogue right now than only the other one, which is starting at such a basic level, that we start rearranging stuff on the Titanic, trying to be less bad with ordinary stuff.
William McDonough
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Richard Meier told me, 'Young man, solar energy has nothing to do with architecture.'
William McDonough
Image
Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power – economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.
William McDonough
Image
Design is inherently optimistic. That is its power.
William McDonough
Image
If we think about things having multiple lives, cradle to cradle, we could design things that can go back to either nature or back to industry forever.
William McDonough
Image
It's going to sound strange probably. But I really like Frank Gehry's works.
William McDonough
Image
Don't get me wrong: I love nuclear energy! It's just that I prefer fusion to fission. And it just so happens that there's an enormous fusion reactor safely banked a few million miles from us. It delivers more than we could ever use in just about 8 minutes. And it's wireless!
William McDonough
Image
Waste equals food, whether it's food for the earth, or for a closed industrial cycle. We manufacture products that go from cradle to grave. We want to manufacture them from cradle to cradle.
William McDonough
Image
Designers are inherently optimistic people who try to make the world a better place
William McDonough