ABOUTMICHAEL.
Michael McDonough AIA, NCARB, USGBC, Hon. FIGP is an award-winning architect, industrial designer, and author who specializes in environmentally appropriate systems and advanced building technologies. He consults on zero energy/zero-carbon energy policy and has designed a wide range of buildings and objects including offices, airports, galleries, multi-media environments, resort buildings, farms, multifamily residences, stores, and custom residences, as well as furniture, exhibits, and jewelry.
McDonough believes that nature and science can be synthesized and that new types of buildings and technologies will emerge. He has published over 80 articles and two books on architecture and design. He has also exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide and collaborated with painters, sculptors, writers, designers, filmmakers, and scientists – notably author Tom Wolfe, industrial designer Hartmut Esslinger, lighting designer Howard Brandston, and fashion designer Steven Sprouse.
In the field of energy research McDonough has won multiple research and development grants and collaborated with New York State’s Energy Research and Development Authority in the development of an ACEC Diamond Award-winning net-zero energy air conditioning system, and net-zero energy geothermal-solar hybrid greenhouse for local agricultural systems globally. He serves on the Steering Committee of the Building Enclosure Council at AIA/NYC, and he won a Governor’s New Jersey Environmental Excellence Award for work in energy policy and related development.
Educated at the University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Pennsylvania, and a co-founder of the experimental Bamboo Research Initiative at Rhode Island School of Design, McDonough has taught and lectured internationally. He has also designed and built a net-zero-energy/zero-carbon building science laboratory, a project the international press termed “the most sustainable building in the world” having “the coolest rooms on the planet.” Integral to the project is a model four-season greenhouse- and forest-based farm that links sustainable, resilient, and adaptive food production systems, community building, and job creation.
Operating as a USDA Certified Organic, Real Organic Project, and NY Grown & Certified farm and research facility, Tongore Brook Farm produces microgreens, hemp, and other specialty and forest crops. Recently the subject of a study on cooperative farming at the Dyson School of Applied Economics at Cornell University, it has served Hudson Valley and NYC food markets and restaurants since 2016. In 2020 McDonough was named a Senior Fellow at Sustainable Hudson Valley.
