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.

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.

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

I had a dual role: designer and advocate.

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.

It sounds really over the top to say you're responsible for the city of New York, but I do feel responsibility to the city of New York, to this country, to people everywhere. So many people were affected by the events of September 11, and I feel this is one of the ways that that event will be understood and defined.