It's not new that architecture can profoundly affect a place, sometimes transform it.

People live and work in uninspiring environments, but look inside those rooms. Look at the painted walls and the decorations. People rebel even in the most controlled office environment in which they're not allowed to do anything. You see the little bulletin board in front of a person's desk with their photos, clippings, cartoons and whatever else.

That's why you go into architecture - at least I did - to do things for people. I think most of us are idealists. You start out that way, anyway.

I don't micromanage the interiors. People ask me to and I say no. I don't want to control everything.

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.

Ideas exist in the marketplace; they are thrown out for everyone to use.

I would like to make a building as intellectually driven as it is sculptural and as positive as it would be acceptable to hope.