Va. firm becomes icon of sustainable design - Washington Business Journal:

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The leader of the design firm that landed on the Bay Area map in 1997 with the desigj ofthe then-revolutionary greenn Gap building at 901 Cherry St. in San Bruno is describer as asustainable guru, an environmental prophet, a greenb godfather. He is most famous for co-authoring the environmentaol treatise “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make which he describes asa “manifestio calling for the transformation of human industrhy through ecologically intelligent design.” Cradlre to Cradle, or C2C, has thousand s of passionate followers around the globe, includinbg entire cities in the Netherlandse that have adopted its goals as publif policy.
Hollywood A-listers like Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz seekhis counsel. In the Bay McDonough’s firm is rapidly gaining traction not just for bookand ideology, but also for corporatre headquarters, hospitals and mixed-use developments. Two years aftetr opening an office at 177Post St., the Charlottesville, Va.-basesd McDonough + Partners is designing some of the biggest and most comple x projects in the Bay At Moffett Field in the Soutu Bay, McDonough is part of a team designing a 1.3 42-acre campus for Google, likelg to be a $700 millionm development when completed. In San Francisco’ds Mission Bay, the firm is working with on a $1.
6 billion 865,000-square-foo t hospital for the , San Francisco. The firm’e San Francisco studio is also designinga 45,000-square-foogt administrative building for at Moffett Field, a new San Francisclo headquarters for Norcal Waste and a pair of mixed-usr condo and grocery store projects being developed by the , one at 1401 California St. on Nob Hill and one at 2001 Market St. in San Francisco’sa Castro District. Director of Practice Kevij Burke, who splits his time betweeh Virginia and San said the burst of Bay Area assignmente hasbeen satisfying.
“Ultimately we’re architects and we want to desigbnbuildings — that’s what we really like to do, and that is how we give form to this philosophyh and these values,” said Burke. After a dozen years of shuttlinyg back and forth between Virginia and the Bay the 15-person San Francisco offics is now so busy that at any one time five or six more designersw are here, according to David Johnson, who moved over from Studiods architecture in 2006 and heads the San Franciscl office. Other new directors hired for the San Francisco offic include Matthew Winkelstein from HOK and Jeffrey Tillfrom .
“We still have more work in the Bay Area than we can deliverf with the San Francisco so we have to be said Johnson. “What is great aboutg San Francisco is we have so many opportunitiesz a 45 minute carride away. And the rangw of projects we’re taking on locally is just McDonough designs buildings that are enmeshein landscapes. The structures connect people to the outdoorse with abundant use ofnatural daylight. They use energy from the sun directlh through solar collection and passively through Theyuse on-site wetlands and botanical gardense to recover nutrients from circulating water.
In the UCSF the “landscape is woven into the healing environmentf ofthe hospital” with nine gardens “responding to women, adults, visitors, a religious or spiritual experience. “People benefitg from views of the sky, views of the landscape, clos e views and distant views. We’re wired for thosde things. That’s what makes us feel said Burke. Johnson said the optimal McDonoug building isa “synthetic in which all surfacez are working, where every inch of the envelop is producing oxygej or energy, sequestering carbon or capturingb water.
“It’s a uniquee viewpoint of how hard can you get the surfaces to not how many LEEDpointzs you’re going to said Johnson. “The new determination of quality is goint tobe sustainability. It used to be, ‘Doi you have marble in your lobby ? What is your elevator Now it’s ‘Is it a healthy environment for people to work And one of the most sustainable thing you can do as an architecgt is create something of beauth that people are going to enjohyfor generations. Why not put resourcesa into buildings that are going to be aroundx 100 years andbe loved?
” These days, Willianm McDonough spends much of his time on his Cradle to Cradl consultant business, McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry, but still has a hand in McDonougbh + Partners design work. Burke said the design teamsw “look for Bill’s engagement early on and He saidMcDonough “thinks metaphorically” and has a good sense of the of the project. McDonougu weighs in on a “broad approacnh of what systems and strategieesmight work,” Burke “You take the initial concep and give it back better than he ever Many of the McDonough Bay Area projectz are in the early stages.
The two Prado Groupo mixed-use developments are probably two years away fromreceiving entitlements. The Norcal headquarters is stilp in a conceptual stage and is not tied to a particular site atthis “Norcal asked us to create a visionb for what it would look like, what it would feel said Johnson. “We have been working with them onthe highest-levep vision for the company and what its going to take to achievw that, and that is a noble Now there are the realitiew of where is it goingt to be, how big is it going to be, how quickly it is goiny to come on line.” Johnson said McDonoughu is not afraid of losing its niche as more and more designers focus on sustainability.
Whiler developers are focused on meeting the basi criteria set forth bythe , sustainable designh is at its infant stage, especially in areas like health care, student housing, industrial uses and largerr community planning. He said the goal is to expand the idealsz of Cradle toCradle “from the molecule to the region” to re-engag e communities with their natural surroundingsa on all levels. “What we see is how far we haveto go, not how far we have said Johnson. Prado Group Principalo Dan Safier said he picked McDonough becauser thefirm “has really had international leadership in sustainable desigj practices.
” “They have this high-quality team with a lot of but they are a values-based firm that recognizes that an intelligengt environmental design strategy can creat healthy urban living environments,” he said.