WILLIAM MCDONOUGH doesn't just have a purpose, he has a multitude of purposes, and all of them are huge. Along with other pioneers like Paul Hawken and Amory Lovins, he wants to kick start what is being called the Next Industrial Revolution, in which industry, commerce, and invention -- including the invention, or planning, of urban spaces -- begin to follow the restorative and regenerative laws of natural systems. Known primarily for his groundbreaking work as a "green architect," McDonough is the kind of monumentally self-assured guy who says things like, "One of my primary gifts to the planet will be this revelation that there are two fundamental metabolisms. There's the biological one and the technical one. You see?" And just when you think he's floating off into grandiose macro-level conjecture, he zooms straight into the technical details of how a given design concept would be applied. His philosophy is futuristic, as well as pragmatic and organic, with his designs growing, at once, both out of and (literally) into the earth itself. It's like he's thousands of feet in the sky, all the while etching rigorously away at a detailed topographical map of the landscape below.

Like many revolutionaries, humility is not the man's strong suit. He talks incredibly fast, and with astonishing exuberance, and walks that fine line between arrogance and confidence, between the pragmatic and the preposterous. He takes himself seriously, but also appreciates beauty and order in a way that humanizes his perhaps overwhelming convictions: Happily sybaritic, he wants everything to taste, sound, smell, and look "delightful." One might reasonably characterize McDonough as a megalomaniac with a beautiful vision -- a vision of architectural and urban systems that work as effectively, and gorgeously, as natural ones do.

This interview, edited with an ear toward maintaining and conveying the passion of the man's speech, is a portion of a recent phone conversation that I had with McDonough. When I called, he had just finished a delicious lunch. The sun, he said, was pouring into his room.

-- Amanda Griscom

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