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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

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William McDonough
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: February 20
Architect
Designer
Environmentalist
Writer
Tōkyō
William Andrews McDonough
Back
Cradle
Things
Multiple
Think
Design
Thinking
Industry
Either
Forever
Lives
Nature

More quotes by William McDonough

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We realized we don't have an invention, that's why we gave it away.
William McDonough
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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
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Carbon in your body - that's good thing. In a tree, it's good. In the atmosphere, it's a bad. Nature wants to sequester carbon in biota. And when we burn it, we release it. It's the wrong system.
William McDonough
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You don't filter smokestacks or water. Instead, you put the filter in your head and design the problem out of existence.
William McDonough
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Honor commerce as the engine of change.
William McDonough
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How do we love all the children of all species for all time?
William McDonough
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The surest way to heal an eco-system is to connect it to more of itself.
William McDonough
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You need that same creative force that exists in a building like Disney [Walt Disney Concert Hall] to actually tackle that most prosaic of problems.
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
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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
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This idea that things are designed to go back to nature or industry for ever which is our articulation of these two metabolisms are actually a discovery not an invention.
William McDonough
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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
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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
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Design is inherently optimistic. That is its power.
William McDonough
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All these corporate reports say they want zero carbon. Well that is ridiculous, because you are not telling us what you are, you are telling us what you are not.
William McDonough
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We have carbon in the atmosphere. That is a material in the wrong place problem. It's just like what I said about the lead. Lead in the biosphere is not good. Carbon in the atmosphere (over natural levels) is a problem.
William McDonough
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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
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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
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If design is the first signal of human intention.
William McDonough
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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