If you just live in New York and you only know New York, you know a certain kind of condition of formality and informality. By being able to go to another context and to be able to use that as a counter foil to the context you know, you are about to see a wider range.

I'm totally into architecture for all strata of society. High design should not just be for rich people.

What I resist is techniques. I find techniques very problematic. So when critics talk about my work in those terms, I find that they miss the condition. I am comfortable with the notion of pattern and ornament as a system of organization, [but] for me it acts as a textile. So it's not about pattern, but the notion of architecture through the lens of textile, rather than architecture through the lens of brick and mortar.

In a way, going to Africa allowed me to see possibilities that sometimes seem impossible in certain conditions. It also allowed me to see opportunities for material strategies. I hate it when people think I went and got something [from Africa] and brought it here. It's more about how it affects the way in which I work and affects [my] creativity.

I got into architecture because I was searching for a way to produce in the world. I went to art school and thought I would do it through art, but I realized very quickly that I was interested in the social ramifications of form making. So buildings became the vehicle and fulfilled that thing. That satisfied me when I produced them. I decided this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

The first 10 years, I was just building just to understand what I was doing and I didn't trust my intuition to just produce. Then, in the last five years, I have really been reflecting on what I am producing and what it is doing.

If you just live in New York and you only know New York, you know a certain kind of condition of formality and informality. By being able to go to another context and to be able to use that as a counter foil to the context you know, you are about to see a wider range.