William McDonough is an internationally renowned designer and one of the primary proponents and shapers of what he and his partners call “The Next Industrial Revolution.”
Time magazine recognized him in 1999 as a “Hero for the Planet,” stating that, “his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that-in demonstrable and practical ways-is changing the design of the world.” Time again recognizedMcDonough and Michael Braungart as “Heroes of the Environment” in October 2007. In 1996, McDonough received the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development, the nation’s highest environmental honor and in 2003 earned the U.S. EPA Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award. In 2004, he received the National Design Award for exemplary achievement in the field of environmental design. In October 2007, McDonough was elected an International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects.
McDonough is the founding partner in William McDonough + Partners, an internationally recognized architecture and community design firm. The firm, with offices in Charlottesville, Virginia; San Francisco; and Amsterdam, has designed pioneering in the U.S. and around the world, such as the 901 Cherry office building for Gap Inc. (now occupied by Google’s YouTube) and “Sustainability Base” at NASA Ames, now under construction. He is also principal of MBDC, a product and systems development firm assisting prominent client companies in designing profitable and environmentally intelligent solutions. McDonough is a Venture Partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners in San Bruno, California. VantagePoint is one of the leading Clean Technology investment firms in the world with a prestigious team of industry luminaries and experts in their fields
McDonough is Consulting Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. He also became Chairman Emeritus of the U.S. Board of Councilors of the China-U.S. Center for Sustainable Development in January 2010, after having served as U.S. Chair since 2001. He is on the Advisory Board for the Cambridge Programme for Sustainability Leadership (CPSL). From 1994-1999, Mr. McDonough was the Edward E. Elson Professor of Architecture and Dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia.
Mr. McDonough’s leadership in sustainable development is recognized widely, both in the U.S. and internationally, and he has written and lectured extensively on his design philosophy and practice. He was commissioned in 1991 to write The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability as guidelines for the City of Hannover’s EXPO 2000, and in 1993 to give the Centennial Sermon at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. More recently, Mr. McDonough and Michael Braungart co-authored Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, published in 2002 by North Point Press.
