Most of our cities built since the war are bland. They're modernist, they're cold, and now architects want to go back to that.

I do my best to choose carefully. If I don’t feel that collaboration is going to happen, I say no. Think about it. These projects can involve a five-to-seven-year partnership. If you don’t feel comfortable with someone, you can’t get rid of them. I just walked away from a job for that reason. Every one of these projects is an emotional investment, like falling in love. You’ve got to believe in it and you’ve got to like the people you work with.

On certain projects, on big public projects, people definitely are interested in making them greener, but on smaller projects with tight budgets it can be harder.

Each project, I suffer like I'm starting over again in life. There's a lot of healthy insecurity that fuels this stuff.

I hate the word starchitect. Stuff like that comes from mean-spirited, untalented journalists. It's demeaning.

When people condemn me for designing iconic buildings in cities and not having an idea what a city is, they haven't done their homework. I started in urban design and city planning. It's just that when I got out of school there wasn't much of a market for that. There still isn't.

A well-designed home has to be very comfortable. I can't stand the aesthetes, the minimal thing. I can't live that way. My home has to be filled with stuff - mostly paintings, sculpture, my fish lamps, cardboard furniture, lots of books.