The spaces I want to be in are nurturing and soft and saturated with color. Our cities don't have enough of that, and as humans we need it.

I recognize that it is through the engagement with my craft - by recognizing an idea and drawing it out, building physical models, collaborating with experts, constructing the sculptures at urban scale, and maintaining them through years of weather and interaction with the public - that a new art for cities has become real.

My whole career I've been interested by the distinction between an emotional and an intellectual response to an artwork.

You can't stumble upon something new and wonderful if you don't have time to stumble.

It's good for art to make us think, to give us a shared experience that creates a dialogue, makes us talk to each other, including strangers.

As a child, I always enjoyed building forts by stringing up bed sheets and clothes. I continue to be inspired by makeshift structures, including my own kids' forts and temporary architecture of all sorts.

When developing an idea, I remind myself not to start with compromise. I envision the ideal manifestation of the idea, as if I had no limits in resources, materials, or permission.