Picture a city that looks as though the landscape has been raised up onto the roofs of its buildings—the before and after pictures are amazing. Twelve new cities need to be built in China, to house 400 million people, and the Chinese government has asked William McDonough, architect and designer, to help. McDonough’s philosophy is to ask, in reference to his design, “how do we love all the children of all species for all time?” The cities will be designed around existing waterways and built so that each apartment will have direct sunlight for at least part of every day. Sewage will be sent to a treatment plant to be converted into natural gas, which residents will use to cook, and fertilizer, for surrounding wetlands. Solar panels in industrial zones will provide all of the city’s power. Every roof is green, and farmers will have access to the roofs via bridges built between them, to keep them that way.


Is this design as good as it sounds or is it an unrealistic dream? So far, work on the city is not going as planned. However, McDonough’s past accomplishments give me hope that he can still succeed.

McDonough has helped to create the world’s largest green roof—ten and a half acres!—on a Ford plant in Dearborn, Michigan. He has assembled a database of 4000 of the most common chemicals used in manufacturing, and made it available to the public for education and change. He designed the environmental studies building at Oberlin College, Ohio, to produce more energy than it uses and to filter its own water.

McDonough is inspired by the remarkable designs found in nature, like trees, and strives to imitate them, as the hegemony of fossil fuels comes to an end.

Watch this video here