July 23, 2004

Teaching Design That Goes From Cradle to Cradle

By WILLIAM McDONOUGH

Each year American colleges and universities hand out design degrees by the thousands. Credentials in hand, an army of young architects and urban planners, engineers, and product designers enter the job market and, with a little luck, begin to practice their professions. But what exactly is the "system" within which they are practicing? Have their college educations prepared them to be the designers of the 21st-century world?

These are not merely academic questions. Designers create