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.

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.

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.

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.

I had a dual role: designer and advocate.

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

I think my desire to imagine a future for this site came out of trying to come to terms with the emotions that day aroused.