My buildings should have an emotional core –a space which, in itself, has an emotional nice 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've said goodbye to the overworked notion that architecture has to save the world.

My relationship to plants becomes closer and closer. They make me quiet; I like to be in their company.

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.

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.

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.