There are some very similar moments in the early work where the focus was on drawing, abstraction and fragmentation. Then it moved to the development of ideas. Lately it has become what architecture should be, which is more fluid organization. There has not been so much 'a change' but 'a development'.

All the privileged can travel, see different worlds, not everyone can. I think it is important for people to have an interesting locale nearby.

What's similar between Britain and America is the lack of good-quality civic buildings.

I think about architecture all the time. That's the problem. But I've always been like that. I dream it sometimes.

From my first days studying architecture at the architectural association, I have always been interested in the concept of fragmentation and with ideas of abstraction and explosion, where we were de-constructing ideas of repetitiveness and mass production.

Architecture is really about well-being. I think that people want to feel good in a space ... On the one hand it's about shelter, but it's also about pleasure.

I am quite sensitive to politics, because you know, as an Arab, an Iraqi, all your life, you are very conscious of it.