PERFORMING TRIBUTE 9/11 shows the heroism of people who have chosen to respond to devastation and hatred with quiet determination and a belief that they can and will make the world a better place.

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

As architects we are often involved in the concrete-steel-and-glass aspect of it, but cities are social structures, and to be involved in imagining the future of cities and the type of relationships and the types of places that we're making is something that intrigues me very much.

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 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.

I pushed the process forward by saying, 'We should do this, this, and this right now. Please find the budget for me to find a structural engineer, a mechanical engineer, a civil engineer, so we can do the preliminary work.

I'm a little more measured. That sense of urgency I thought accompanied things - it can take a little longer. You have to take the long view.