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

When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history and its sensuous qualities.

Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to past life.

There was a time when I experienced architecture without thinking about it.

My buildings should have an emotional core –a space which, in itself, has an emotional nice feeling.

You feel a certain way in a glass or concrete or limestone building. It has an effect on your skin - the same with plywood or veneer, or solid timber. Wood doesn't steal energy from your body the way glass and concrete steal heat. When it's hot, a wood house feels cooler than a concrete one, and when it's cold, the other way around.

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.