Clean Design Protocol from the Bottom Up

McDonough + Partners founder William McDonough recalls the history of how his design firm came to investigate and inventory the marketplace of tens of thousands of industrial compounds, chemicals, and building materials, and how he has sought to both simplify and detoxify the process of product and architectural design. The supply chain is kinked with so many layers of products that even well-meaning manufacturers might not know the character of the toxic and disease-inducing compounds they employ. This industrial naivite has led McDonough to archive thousands of these industrial building blocks and rate their numerous properties and uses – and he encourages designers and inventors to consider this research in the engineering process.