There’s a lot of discussion going on these days at Pantopicon HQ about the work of William McDonough and Michael Braungart, in part because of a fascinating documentary on their work was broadcasted on national television, as well as because of our involvement in a transition management project on the issue of waste here in Belgium. Several years ago, McDonough, renowned architect and designer, and Braungart, one of the world’s most important ecological toxicologists, set up McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, an office to join forces on the issues of cradle to cradle design (read the book), based upon a philosophy that “waste equals food“.

On a meta-level there are several parallels with the whole philosophy of biomimicry (make sure to read Janine’s book), in the sense of taking inspiration from nature as the great teacher. When we say “waste equals food” we take inspiration from nature’s life cycle principle: something ‘dies’ or breaks apart, with the help of its natural environment, mechanisms and elements present therein, it disintegrates and is reduced to food once again for organisms present within that environment, hence giving life. This is the mental image from which we ought to design our ’stuff’. For McDonough and Braungart it is their ‘driving image’, from which they not only imagine but design the future. In doing so, they go beyond ‘minimal’ and ’sustainable’, which is not enough, all the way to ‘generative’ and ‘regenerative’ (e.g. integrating plantseeds in biodegradable ice-cream packaging).

To put it in McDonough’s own words:

“The goal is very simple and technical, and the goal is a delightfully, diverse, safe, healthy and just world with clean air, soil, water and power, economically, equitably, ecologically and elegantly enjoyed. Period.”

In a masterful way McDonough and Braungart bring their essentially simple message across and show how it can and is being put into practice. In their philosophy of cradle to cradle design, consumption looses its bad aftertaste, because while consuming, creating waste, one is actually creating food, nutrients for the bio- as well as the technosphere, one is creating value and wealth instead of losses and debts. This added focus on economic instead of a purely ecological argumentation increases their potential impact upon the world of business manifold (cf. their impressive client portfolio).

As McDonough says: “If utopianism is profitable business, than I guess this is utopian.”

As a little extra, check out McDonough’s design for tomorrow’s tower.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 14th, 2006 at 08:57 and is filed under design, sustainability, visions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.