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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

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William McDonough
Age: 73
Born: 1951
Born: February 20
Architect
Designer
Environmentalist
Writer
Tōkyō
William Andrews McDonough
Rather
Reflect
Human
Crafts
Humans
Architecture
Much
Potential
Mind
Breathe
Things
Exciting
Stop
Exploring
Causes
Craft

More quotes by William McDonough

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The problem I have with carbon as a bad thing issue, is that people go out and say they want to be zero carbon. You see it everywhere.
William McDonough
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In planetary terms, we're all downstream.
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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Sustainability takes forever. And that's the point.
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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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
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Designing renders visible our hopes and dreams. It is the first signal of human intentions.
William McDonough
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It's going to sound strange probably. But I really like Frank Gehry's works.
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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We are not a green standard, we are a quality standard. We're different, we're multi dimensional.
William McDonough
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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
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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
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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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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
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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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We prefer to talk about 100% renewable instead of zero carbon. When you say zero carbon, you are not positively defined.
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 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
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I just think it is so delightful to see people, let their elbows free. I think the exuberance of it all is really exciting to me. It's a signal of the abundance of diversity and creative expression.
William McDonough
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It would be nice if all that exuberance and abundance was connected to a deep ethos of planetary responsibility.
William McDonough