We live and work in boxes. People don't even notice that. Most of what's around us is banal. We live with it. We accept it as inevitable. People say, "This is the world the way it is, and don't bother me."

A new idea is obsolete in seconds, right? I just said it and now it's obsolete.

Democracy is a problem and we don't want to get rid of it.

Ultimately you can't repress individuality, even though you can try.

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

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.

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