Quote

We are not a green standard, we are a quality standard. We're different, we're multi dimensional.

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
Quality
Different
Multi
Dimensional
Standard
Standards
Green

More quotes by 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
How do we love all the children of all species for all time?
William McDonough
Image
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
Image
We prefer to talk about 100% renewable instead of zero carbon. When you say zero carbon, you are not positively defined.
William McDonough
Image
We realized we don't have an invention, that's why we gave it away.
William McDonough
Image
The eco-effective future of industry is a world of abundance that celebrates the use and consumption of products and materials that are, in effect, nutritious - as safe, effective, and delightful as a cherry tree.
William McDonough
Image
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
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
Designers are inherently optimistic people who try to make the world a better place
William McDonough
Image
It's going to sound strange probably. But I really like Frank Gehry's works.
William McDonough
Image
It would be nice if all that exuberance and abundance was connected to a deep ethos of planetary responsibility.
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
Design is inherently optimistic. That is its power.
William McDonough
Image
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
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
I think as designers we realize design is a signal of intention, but it also has to occur within a world and we have to understand that world in order to imbue our designs with inherent intelligence.
William McDonough
Image
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
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
You don't filter smokestacks or water. Instead, you put the filter in your head and design the problem out of existence.
William McDonough
Image
Here's where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good.
William McDonough