William McDonough + Partners are architects, planners, and leaders in sustainable design.

William McDonough + Partners, William McDonough’s award-winning architecture and community design practice, is dedicated to place-specific,...
See More high performance designs that support ecological health and human well-being. As one of the pioneers of the green building movement, McDonough has earned the reputation of being “the leading environmental architect of our time.” After building the first solar house in Ireland while a graduate student at Yale, McDonough designed the first “green office” in New York, for the Environmental Defense Fund (1985), which set the modern green building movement in motion, inspired the formation of the U.S. Green Building Council, and established many of the principles and practices that have come to define sustainable design.

Landmark projects throughout the decades include—Herman Miller’s “Greenhouse” Factory and Offices; Gap, Inc.’s Corporate Campus (now the YouTube headquarters); Nike’s European Headquarters; and the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College—were followed by other commissions that have become the flagships of 21st century environmental design: Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge truck plant, widely celebrated for its pioneering and iconic 10-acre “living roof”; NASA’s Sustainability Base, the “first space station on Earth” and one of the most innovative buildings in the federal portfolio; and Park 20|20 in the Netherlands, a new model of mixed-use, transit-oriented, Cradle to Cradle-inspired urban development, which was awarded a 2010 American Society of Landscape Architecture Honor Award for creating a dynamic environmental system that enhances the local community, its ecosystem and its economy.

McDonough is co-creator of the Cradle to Cradle® framework for design, and foundation of the Cradle to Cradle Certified™ Products Program, a global standard for the design of safe, healthy products; business strategist for leading global companies; and an advisor to the United Nations, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China, the Clinton Global Initiative and the World Economic Forum.

William McDonough is also author of The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability (1992), which remains a touchstone of the movement, and co-author of the widely influential Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things (2002) and The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance (2013). McDonough’s writings are widely published in magazines, newspapers, journals and other periodicals.

McDonough is a globally recognized designer, thought leader and sustainable growth pioneer and the pre-eminent voice for the world-changing power of ecologically intelligent design and what he calls “waging peace through commerce.” For more than 40 years he has set the terms and defined the principles of the sustainability movement, creating its seminal buildings, products, texts and enterprises and preparing the ground for its widespread growth.