I grew up in a craftsman's home, where things were done with our own hands. I did cabinetmaking for four years and I hated it.

There is still a real need for good quality architecture, not paper architecture, but the real stuff.

I've said goodbye to the overworked notion that architecture has to save the world.

Designing is a matter of concentration. You go deep into what you want to do. It's about intensive research, really. The concentration is warm and intimate and like the fire inside the earth - intense but not distorted. You can go to a place, really feel it in your heart. It's actually a beautiful feeling.

In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life, one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction.

I need a close contact to the client, whoever it is, and a commitment of the client to go out and do a process together. I want to do the best for him. I need his respect and his patience. I want to work with a sophisticated person who's interested in a good building and not in my name.

Normally, architects render a service. They implement what other people want. This is not what I do. I like to develop the use of the building together with the client, in a process, so that as we go along we become more intelligent.