William McDonough

William Andrews McDonough (born February 20, 1951) is an American architect and academic. McDonough is the founding principal of William McDonough + Partners and was the dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. He works in green and sustainable architecture, often incorporating his theory of cradle-to-cradle design. Early life McDonough was born in Tokyo and spent most of his childhood in Hong Kong where his father was a foreign service officer. Later, his father was a Seagram executive and his family lived in Canada and Westport, Connecticut. He says the move caused "profound culture shock". McDonough attended Dartmouth College. After graduating, he worked on the Jordan River valley redevelopment project and lived in a Bedouin tent. He studied architecture at Yale University in the mid-1970s. To fund his college education, he worked as a chauffeur for Benny Goodman. Career McDonough founded an architectural practice in New York City in 1981. He moved his practice, William McDonough + Partners, to Charlottesville, Virginia in 1994 when he accepted the position of the dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Virginia. He served as dean until 1999 and has since been a professor of business administration and an alumni research professor.