william mcdonough interview

8/9/2019 William McDonough Interview

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Can the buildings where we live and work begrown rom seeds?

William McDonough thinks so. His radically redesigned Ford Rouge Complex in Michigan is amodel o green architecture and e fciency that eatures a living roo composed o real plants.

A leader in the feld o sustainable design, William McDonough creates strategies orenvironmentally intelligent buildings. His constructions incorporate nature into designand eature daylight, resh air, diversity, li e and creativity. Learn about one o the astest

growing trends in the worlds industry. Join William McDonough as he explains a uture whereindustrial design and environmental intelligence are synonymous.

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A leading advocate o sustainable architecture, William McDonough

is more than a designer o environments. He is an environmental

designer.

The legendary Ford Motor Company Rouge Complex, one o

his notable projects, eatures the worlds largest living roo . It

eloquently expresses McDonoughs core philosophy: Waste nothing.

Like R. Buckminster Fuller, William McDonough never fghts theorces o nature in his designs he uses them. In doing so, he

creates a harmony that endures.

William McDonough - www.OnInnovation.com

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Le t: The sedum roo o the Dearborn Truck Plant. Bottom right: Workers planting the roo .Top right: Worker with the amed Rouge smokestacks in the background.

Based on a verbatim transcript o an interview at William McDonough + Partners in Charlottesville, Virginia, conducted September 8, 2008 www.OnInnovation.com


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William McDonough,Sustainable ArchitectDesigner o the Dearborn Truck Plants living roo ,visionary or the planet.

Waste nothing.

01:02:00; 08

I remember hearing the oxcarts come in at 2 oclock in the morning to collect oursewage and take it out to the armers. So we always knew that our waste wentout to become ood and soil. And so when the oxcarts came back in with the to uand the vegetables and all the meats and things, you know, that was directlyconnected to our waste. That was the way it was. One things waste is anotherthings ood.

01:02:47; 10

Then coming to the States and seeing this world o abundance in contrast to theworld o limits made me very sensitive to the act o waste here in the Westernculture. And so this development o a design strategy around waste equals oodusing the sun or power and celebrating diversity had a lot to do with the

act that I grew up overseas in di erent conditions.

Cradle to cradle.01:12:38; 15

Well, I work with a a philosophy we call cradle to cradle. And Ive developedit with Dr. Michael Brownguard rom Germany, whos a chemist. So you havean architect and a chemist. And the way we look at the world is design andchemistry. And so we say, Wouldnt it be wonder ul i everything that wedesigned was like a living thing where you could be happy that its growing?Instead o being worried that its getting bigger youre happy that its gettingbigger.

Further inspiration: R. Buckminster Fuller.

01:20:13; 13

These are gi ts I received rom Thomas Zung, who was a partner o BuckminsterFuller. And whats interesting about this one is that its a what he called atensegrity structure. So its its a compression and tension. And this thesestruts are in compression. The cables are in tension. But they hold in tension aball at the center o this tetrahedron. And so it identifes a single point in spaceheld in tension, which is quite amazing when you think about it.

Wouldnt it be wonder uli everything that wedesigned was like aliving thing where youcould be happy that itsgrowing?

William McDonough



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William McDonough.

Closeup o a tensegrity sculpture in the o fce.


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01:22:41; 17

He absolutely had a system. He he was one o the frst thinkers rom a

design perspective to go rom the scale o the molecule to the scale o thegalaxy and try and come up with a, sort o a unifed design theory that couldtranscend, you know, dimension like that. . . . He dealt with something he calledsynergistics, which was how the whole world worked. And then he had histensegrity in his geodesics or the earthbound objects.

The Rouge project.

02:17:26; 05

We had done a green roo or The Gap or their corporate campus in San Bruno,Cali ornia, which was a meadow o ancient grasses beauti ul roo but it wasvery heavy, because it was a real solid meadow with this much soil under it. Sono one had really done a large-scale lightweight roo .

02:05:08; 18

I met Bill Ford and we went up to his o fce and looked out at the Rouge inthe distance. And he asked me: Do you think you can apply your ideas tothat place? And I remember thinking, I we cant, you know, were all dead,because this has to become a living thing instead o a dead and dirty thing.

So we basically asked the question, What are the principles that were gonna

use to design this place? And the quality workplace became the guidingprinciple. This is a quality workplace. And then the questions became things likequality soil, quality water, quality environments and so on. And once we hadthat, we could then set the goals.

02:09:35; 17

The board approved it in about a minute and a hal but it took a massiveamount o hope and a massive amount o creativity, a massive amount oteamwork and . . . a heavy dose o leadership rom Bill.

I think Bill Ford opened the door to innovation and said, Innovate your way

to the solutions that are cost-e ective that meet the green agenda,both ineconomic terms and in ecological terms.

My advice to young people isto travel to get out and see theworld. Because i youre notopen to the world, you wontbe able to imagine the kindso solutions that are gonna be

necessary. William McDonough

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A wall o photos o McDonough + Partnersarchitecture projects.

A view o the architectural o fce, workstationsand models.




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William McDonough has a lot moreto say. Visit OnInnovation.comto see his ull, unedited interview, read the complete transcriptand connect with other visionaries thinking out loud.

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William McDonough in his o fce at WilliamMcDonough + Partners.


See the world.

03:14:46; 03

My advice to young people is to travel, to get out and see the world. Because iyoure not open to the world, you wont be able to imagine the kinds o solutionsthat are gonna be necessary. And there may be an essay o clues out there oryou, as an individual, that you could see by opening yoursel to other culturesand other experiences. And I think that reedom that youre giving yoursel bytraveling is a really special gi t o youth.


Inspirational objects in McDonoughs o fce.

william mcdonough interview

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