As a woman you're not accessible to every world.

Good education is so important. We do need to look at the way people are taught. It not just about qualifications to get a job. It's about being educated.

As a woman, I'm expected to want everything to be nice and to be nice myself. A very English thing. I don't design nice buildings - I don't like them. I like architecture to have some raw, vital, earthy quality.

When I taught, all my best students were women.

Architecture is particularly difficult for women; there's no reason for it to be. I don't want to blame men or society, but I think it was for a long time, the clients were men, the building industry is all male.

The goal posts might shift, but you should have a goal.

I will always have two regrets. I don't have a presence in London, and I would have liked to have done more work in the Middle East.