When I was in the Army, the unit I served in, you could never stop. It was a volunteer unit, and there was a fairly high rate of attrition. The people who stayed through are the people who were either great at it or the people who just didn't know how to stop. And I fell into that second category.

How do you design it so that people can form a space of their own, and feel quiet and contemplative?

I love New York, but I'd felt like an outsider here.

For two years nobody talked about anything other than the name arrangement. There was no fund-raising and no progress being made on construction and design.

I really appreciate artists of the 20th century, and I can see a lot of their influence on my work, but to suggest that my design only fits within an 'ism' kind of bothers me.

I hope for the experience of people standing together, turning their backs to the city and facing this, and hearing the leaves rustle. Well, maybe it won't be as bucolic as at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but I know you will feel removed from the city.

You can just never desist. You have to always push back, whatever the pressures put on you.