When everything is perfectly orderly and understandable, there has to be one thing that puts everything into question.

I remember, as a young architect, people always talked about I. M. Pei's concrete. He had a particular specification no one else knew.

When you have rules to abide by, does that curtail you as a designer, or set you free? People think of classical architecture visually, but I think the brilliant part of it is actually spatial.

I'm inspired by looking at art, by looking at precedent. Looking is what you have to do if you want to make things, so you develop a critical eye.

I was brought up to reuse things.

I make spaces that are calm rather than confrontational. I seek a certain kind of logic that allows you to move in space and perceive it as beautiful and rational. Clarity is a worthwhile quality.

Tension is an interesting quality - and architecture must have it. There should be elements of the inexplicable, the mysterious, and the poetic in something that is perfectly rational.