You see a lot of so-called architecture that part of the ego trip overpowers the functionality and the budget and all that stuff.

It's not elitist to acknowledge that everyone has a unique signature and everyone is different.

Cardboard is another material that's ubiquitous and everybody hates, yet when I made furniture with it everybody loved it.

I found the material that people hated the most and used the most. So, I was going and try and see if I could play with it sculpturally.

You have freedom, so you have to make choices - and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It's a signature.

I think people care. If not, why do so many people spend money going on vacations to see architecture? They go to the Parthenon, to Chartres, to the Sydney Opera House. They go to Bilbao... Something compels them, and yet we live surrounded by everything but great architecture.

If you're serious about being an architect, you've got to learn how to take responsibility.