Inside the revolution: William McDonough + partners is changing residential design—one green home at a time

Residential Architect, March, 2004 by Meghan Drueding

The bucolic burg of Charlottesville, Va., isn't the first place you'd look for an internationally known architecture practice like William McDonough Partners. But then, the eco-minded firm has never been one to play by the rules. The unconventional philosophies of its founding partner, Bill McDonough, FAIA, have redefined both green building design and the greater environmental movement. The firm has turned commissions from mainstream corporations like Ford Motor Company and Gap Inc. into leading-edge green buildings, garnering glowing press for both itself and its clients. "By creating structures that make oxygen, store carbon, harness energy as fuel, and provide habitat for hundreds of species, William McDonough Partners is slowly but surely transforming the once lifeless and inefficient buildings that house corporate America," reads a typically fervent accolade, this one from Outside magazine in 2001.

Despite its enviable success with large-scale work, there's always been a place at McDonough Partners for custom houses. "There's something about working directly with someone on their home," says McDonough. "You get to the level of the visceral experience of living there--the color of light on the walls, the sound of feet on the floor. It's an intense personal connection." Lately the firm has also turned its attention to single-family and multifamily developments, designing housing in Canada, Spain, and China, among other far-flung places. As usual, it's going about the process in its own distinctive way. "Unlike many out there, they have an established framework of thinking," says Pliny Fisk, a well-known green architect based in Austin, Texas. "It's all very clear and logical."

no limits

Much of this clear and logical thinking takes place inside an unassuming red brick building in downtown Charlottesville. McDonough Partners moved into the space, which formerly served as the U.S. Army's National Ground Intelligence Center, in September 2003. The new digs boast a more efficient configuration than the old office, a former warehouse across town, and the open floor plan suits the firm's interdisciplinary nature. Many of its 30 employees have backgrounds in urban or landscape design as well as architecture, and they float among four studios--residential, community design, commercial, and industrial--rather than specializing in one project type.

Take design partner Allison Ewing, AIA. Of the firm's five current partners, Ewing is the one most associated with the residential studio. But she's also played a key design role in commercial and institutional projects like Gap Inc.'s grass-roofed corporate campus and an unbuilt education center and panda habitat for the National Zoo. Diane Dale, another partner and the firm's director of community design, holds degrees in landscape architecture and law rather than architecture. Her studio handles jobs as varied as a master plan for housing at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.; a framework for brownfield regeneration at Ford's Rouge Center assembly plant in Dearborn, Mich.; and a set of sustainable design principles for the city of Chicago.

The firm's willingness to reach across disciplines has enhanced its relationships with collaborators like Pete O'Shea, director of the landscape studio at VMDO, an architecture firm in Charlottesville. "They recognize when they need outside expertise, but at the same time they don't compartmentalize," says O'Shea. "There aren't a lot of boundaries. If I have something to say about the architecture, I'll say it and they'll listen." Such flexibility has helped McDonough Partners win commissions for project types it hasn't done before, all the while strengthening the versatility of its individual designers.

hands on

The staff's freedom to work on different project types comes straight from the top, since McDonough likes to have a hand in every job the office takes on. He teams with the other partners, associate partners, and associates to come up with overall concepts, and reviews jobs periodically throughout the design process. "It's like writing a piece of music," he says. "The composer decides it's a concerto, and in what key." Having built a couple of houses himself while still in architecture school at Yale, McDonough takes a particular interest in the high-end private residences the firm designs. Before he had his own family, he'd arrange to spend a week or so living in each one before the owners moved in, just to make sure everything was perfect. "It was like tuning the house," he says, continuing the music metaphor. "1 could do things like make sure the doors closed beautifully. I still like to do it, but I can't so much anymore."

Now McDonough is a giant in the field of environmental design. tie helped found the U.S. Green Building Council and the AIA Committee on the Environment, and trots the globe giving speeches about sustainability. The firm's 1994 move to Charlottesville from New York City, where he started it in 1981, was precipitated by his selection as dean of the University of Virginia's School of Architecture, a position he held until 1999.