William McDonough + Partners

Architecture and PlanningVirginia, United States11-50 Employees

William McDonough + Partners (WM+P) was an award winning architecture and community design firm with an approach to design grounded in the Cradle to Cradle philosophy co-created by founder William McDonough. 

Operating from 1981-2025, the firm earned a reputation as a global leader in sustainable design. In 1985, WM+P designed the first “green office” in New York, for the Environmental Defense Fund. This project set the modern green building movement in motion, it inspired the formation of the U.S. Green Building Council, and it established many of the principles and practices that have come to define sustainable design.

Notable projects included Herman Miller’s “Greenhouse” Factory and Offices, a case study for biophilic design and productivity; YouTube's Headquarters (originally designed for Gap, Inc.), featuring ancient grasses on a rooftop meadow; and the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies at Oberlin College, described by The New York Times as ‘the most remarkable of a new generation of college buildings” and by the U.S. Department of Energy as one of the 30 ‘milestone’ buildings of the 20th century. 

Other flagship projects include: Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge truck plant, widely celebrated for its iconic 10-acre “living roof” which was the largest in the world at the time of completion; NASA’s Sustainability Base, the “first space station on Earth”; and the award winning master plan and architecture projects at Park 20|20, the Netherlands first Cradle to Cradle-inspired urban development, designed to enhance the local community, ecosystem and economy.

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