William McDonough Quotes

31 quotes in 441 categories

• 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…
• In the end, the question is not, how do we use nature to serve our interests? It's how can we use humans to serve nature's…
• We celebrate the cherry tree not for its efficiency but for its effectiveness - and for its beauty. Its materials are in constant flow, and…
• You don't filter smokestacks or water. Instead, you put the filter in your head and design the problem out of existence.
• Designers are inherently optimistic people who try to make the world a better place
• 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.
• 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…
• 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…
• How do we love all the children of all species for all time?
• Here's where redesign begins in earnest, where we stop trying to be less bad and we start figuring out how to be good.
• Richard Meier told me, 'Young man, solar energy has nothing to do with architecture,'
• We see a world of abundance, not limits. In the midst of a great deal of talk about reducing the human ecological footprint, we offer…
• To eliminate the concept of waste means to design things-products, packaging, and systems-from the very beginning on the understanding that waste does not exist.
• 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…
• 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.
• 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…
• 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…
• 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…
• Design is the first signal of human intention.
• Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy, and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power – economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed.

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