Generally people are afraid. They pretend they aren’t; it’s part of the denial. We’re all part of it. As much as we pretend otherwise, we want what’s comfortable, and we’re afraid of the different. We’re afraid of change. It happened in Los Angeles, too, when the first models of Disney Hall were shown. You should have heard the outcry from the public, critics and press. It was called “broken crockery,” “outlandish” and blah blah blah. Of course now the feeling is different.

It's a metaphor for what we're being told: "Just stay in the box, kid, don't muddy the water." Parents say it to their kids. Teachers say it. Schools do. And so people become immune to the sameness.

I'm a do-gooder liberal.

People ask me if I'm an artist or an architect. But I think they're the same.

China is building cities for a 20 to 40 percent increase in population. India is quickly growing. The carbon footprints of that and other development around the world are overwhelming.

I can't just decide myself what's being built. Someone decides what they want, then I work for them.

I don't want to do architecture that's dry and dull.