I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It's not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.

I design for the use of a building and the place and for the people who use it... the reputation for arrogance comes because when work is offered to me, I look whether I can find a genuine interest in quality.

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.

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

Presence is like a gap in the flow of history, where all of [a] sudden it is not past and not future.

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.

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