Word: mcdonoughs
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When architectural firms began to compete for the Gap Inc. office complex in San Bruno, Calif., William McDonough saw it as a competition of ideas rather than for a contract. "Our idea," he says, "was that if a bird flew over the building, it would not know that anything had changed." If that sounds like pure eco-nut talk (I almost resist noting that McDonough is for the birds), try the question he puts to potential clients when he undertakes any of his architectural projects: "I ask, 'How do we love all children, all species, all time...
Upon hearing him say that, one is tempted to go for a pistol, but after a day of McDonough's instruction in much more than architecture, one sees that his utopianism is grounded in a unified philosophy that--in demonstrable and practical ways--is changing the design of the world. McDonough empathizes with birds because he's a rare one himself, a visionary--half green, half pink--who talks like a communist, thinks like a plutocrat and acts like an ecologist. Indeed, the three points of his abstractly designed universe (he is given to drawing incomprehensible diagrams on any available...
...campus, which William McDonough+Partners completed in 1997, is an anomaly of a building that looks more beautiful in life than it does in photos, and seems to expand its beauty from the inside out. The inside is essentially the outside, so when one is there, one is also somewhere else. The "facts" of the structure read like an essay on "What I Did for the Environment Last Summer": the roofs are planted with native grasses and wildflowers atop 6 in. of soil that both fools the birds and serves as a thermal and acoustical insulator. San Bruno...
...McDonough's prognosis is optimistic for the unfit Harvard student. Though aerobics neophytes might not want to jump directly into the Master Combo/Intermediate Advanced class offered on Sundays, she stresses that "all classes are accessible to almost everyone. Depending on your level of fitness, you can adjust the workout to your level...
...Besides banishing the chocolate chub, MAC aerobics can ward off the post-Valentine's emotional doldrums as well. McDonough is a firm believer in the mental benefits of exercise, and explains that "exercise releases endorphins in the brain" that are often cited as the source of an exercise high. "I'm no medical authority, but the mental aspect of exercise is huge. The endorphins put you in a good mood." But what's better, a chocolate rush or an endorphine high...