Ninety percent of the buildings we live in and around aren't architecture. No, that's not right - 98 percent.

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.

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.

The message I hope to have sent is just the example of being yourself.

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

I think you've got to accept that certain things are in process that you can't change, that you can't overwhelm. The chaos of our cities, the randomness of our lives, the unpredictability of where you're going to be in ten years from now - all of those things are weighing on us, and yet there is a certain glimmer of control. If you act a certain way, and talk a certain way, you're going to draw certain forces to you.

We should celebrate variety rather than conformity and allow people to express themselves. That we don't is more of our denial.