My father always told me that I was going to be a failure - I think he was more talking about himself, but I didn't know it at the time.

Some cultures tried to stop people from expressing themselves. In Mao's China, for example, the Communists tried to stop individual expression. For them the payoff was a society of equality. The problem of course is that it didn't work.

The fact is I'm an opportunist. I'll take materials around me, materials on my table, and work with them as I'm searching for an idea that works.

Those who say only artists and architects can create are the ones who are elitist.

Everything - design and technology and materials - has changed since the World Trade Center was built. A lot of it has to do with computers, which allow us to be far more efficient as well as structurally sound.

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 never said I was opposed to the LEED program or to green building - I'm not.