Notes on William McDonough: The Wisdom Of Designing Cradle To Cradle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoRjz8iTVoo

1. Rachel Carson, Silent Spring,

http://www.amazon.com/Silent-Spring-Rachel-Carson/dp/0618249060/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264035182&sr=8-1

rubber duck example:
1. includes chemicals known to cause reproductive defects/cancer
2. we have a design problem
3. design is a signal of intention
4. designs must have inherent intelligence
5. design must come in abundance

NO:
tyranny
concern for limits
strategy of tragedy


Design
dominion and stewardship are together
how do we love all the children of all species of all time

State
1. right to kill
2. right to be duplicitous

Commerce:
1. how do we generate prosperity?

We can prevent:
1. global warming
2. mercury toxicity of children. Solution: clean air act.

YES!
1. strategy of hope!
2. No end game, the infinite game
3. cradle to cradle
4. a doctor in India has given eyesight to 2 million people for free
5. a carpet has been developed which is constantly recyclable
6. the corporate campus for the gap is a nesting grounds for birds, an asset
7. In Hong Kong, farmers could farm the same piece of land for 40 centuries
8. we need “technical nutrition”
9. trees: 1) make oxygen, 2) sequester oxygen, 3) fix nitrogen, 4) distills water, 5) accrues solar energy as fuel, 6) makes complex sugars as food, 7) creates microclimates, 8) changes colors with the seasons, 9) self replicates.

“Our goal is a delightfully diverse, safe, healthy and just world, with clean air, water, soil and power-economically and elegantly enjoyed.”

Other issues:
1. diversity can be difficult but we want it
2. our products aren’t safe and healthy
3. mistreatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay
4. water has been declared a human right by United Nations
5. air quality, important to anyone who breathes
6. nitrification of soil
7. car steel cannot be recycled because its coating is contaminated
8. we’ve found 6x as much plastic as plankton in certain parts of the ocean
9. if China uses brick for housing: ruin all soil, have no food, no energy
10. China sells toxic products to Walmart, US sends $ to China, mutually assured destruction

“When will we see the end of the age of oil? The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.”

Other truth
1. companies that act ethically outperform those who don’t

Awesome:
1. William McDonough went to Yale & studied in a building by Le Corbusier
2. designed a solar-heated house which was built in Ireland
3. Vitruvius talked about solar energy & architecture

Cradle To Cradle
1. the book itself is a polymer, the book is not a tree

“We write our history on the skin of fish with the blood of bears”

Agenda:
1. cost
2. performance
3. aesthetics
4. ecological intelligence (life)
5. justice (liberty)
6.fun (the pursuit of happiness)
7. growth that is good

Interplaying forces:
1. energy is physics
2. chemistry is math
3. biology problem: put forth toxic materials, can’t recovery that output

Challenging Assumptions:
1. growth is good: growth is a precondition for simple replication
2. growth requires a free form of energy (sunlight)
3. needs an open system of chemicals operating for the benefit of the organism and its reproduction
4. could human artifice be a living thing?
5. we want an open metabolism!

What do we want to grow?
1. not destruction
2. prosperity
3. health
4.security
5.community
6. peace
7. culture
8. cheese

Primary metabolisms [nutrition] :
1. biological: planet can only sustain 500M humans, Birkenstocks & organic cotton, not good enough
2. technical

Eco effective design criteria:
1. carcinogenicity
2. teratogenicity
3. mutagenicity
4. disruption of endocrine system

Concepts:
1. infinitely recyclable nylon in Nikes
2. biodegradable soles
3. Ford car: some materials cycle back into industry, others turn into soil
4. building like a tree
5. waste = food
6. lift earth onto roof

Actual projects:
1. building @ Oberlin, creates more energy than it needs to operate, purifies its own water,
2. building for the Gap in California, grasses on roof,
3. saved Ford $35 million by using trees to filter storm-water
4. world’s largest green roof-Ford
5. house 400M people in China in ten years
6. feces to waste water treatment plant > used as fertilizer
7. fertilizer > gas to use for cooking