This week’s lecture focused on sustainability, and how just
creating green buildings isn’t exactly making it a sustainable building. It made this clear that we have to focus on
life progression of buildings, a cradle to grave design. Yasu later mentioned
that a cradle to grave theory is not sustainable in its self, and that without
recycling, sustainability cannot fully exist.
Architect William McDonough believes green design can
prevent environmental disaster and drive economic growth. He champions “cradle
to cradle” design, which considers a product's full life cycle --from creation
with sustainable materials to a recycled afterlife.
Architect William McDonough practices green architecture on
a massive scale. In a 20-year project, he is redesigning Ford's city-sized
River Rouge truck plant and turning it into the Rust Belt's eco-poster child,
with the world's largest "living roof" for reclaiming storm runoff.
He has created buildings that produce more energy and clean water than they
use. He is building the future of design on the site of the future of
exploration: the NASA Sustainability Base. He is also currently designing seven
entirely new and entirely green cities in China.
Bottom-line economic benefits are another specialty of McDonough's practice. A tireless proponent of the idea that absolute sustainability and economic success can go hand-in-hand, he's designed buildings for the Gap, Nike and Frito-Lay that have lowered corporate utility bills by capturing daylight for lighting, using natural ventilation instead of AC, and heating with solar or geothermal energy. They're also simply nicer places to work, surrounded by natural landscaping that gives back to the biosphere.
In 2002 he co-wrote Cradle to Cradle, which proposes that designers think as much about what happens at the end of a product's life cycle as they do about its beginning. (The book itself is printed on recyclable plastic.) From this, he is developing the Cradle to Cradle community, where like-minded designers and businesspeople can grow the idea.
Bottom-line economic benefits are another specialty of McDonough's practice. A tireless proponent of the idea that absolute sustainability and economic success can go hand-in-hand, he's designed buildings for the Gap, Nike and Frito-Lay that have lowered corporate utility bills by capturing daylight for lighting, using natural ventilation instead of AC, and heating with solar or geothermal energy. They're also simply nicer places to work, surrounded by natural landscaping that gives back to the biosphere.
In 2002 he co-wrote Cradle to Cradle, which proposes that designers think as much about what happens at the end of a product's life cycle as they do about its beginning. (The book itself is printed on recyclable plastic.) From this, he is developing the Cradle to Cradle community, where like-minded designers and businesspeople can grow the idea.
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