If somebody asked me about my inspiration I would say that it's not the peopleand it's not the things, it's travel and experiencing different environments.

One of the best things I ever did was to train in a practical skill. I love computers and they've become such a part of life, especially to the world of design. But it's important to understand that they are a tool, as much as a hammer or a saw is a tool. Computers don't help you design. There needs to be more emphasis on training young designers in how to build things. A good writer needs a good vocabulary. A good designer needs to understand his materials and processes. You can't, as a successful designer, pretend to get any respect if you don't know how things are made.

So if I design it and then go away, it's still living somewhere and it still exists by itself without me.

I don't have any furniture of mine in my room.

Then I started to do furniture and interiors for a friend and just to get stuff in a magazine, and then slowly started to build up and started to doing exhibitions.

Doing anything in Japan as a sort of architecture - related project is just fantastic because they do everything so perfectly and so quickly. It's unlike anywhere else in the world.

Design schools are good, I guess, sometimes I visit schools, but they are very very limiting.