My father was a politician, and a very important politician, and one of the leaders of the Iraqi Democratic Party, who believed in progress.

You really have to have a goal. The goal posts might shift, but you should have a goal. Know what it is you want to find out.

The spirit of adventure to embrace the new and the incredible belief in the power of invention attracted me to the Russian avant-garde.

I love driving around east London - it's always full of surprises. Actually, I don't drive myself - I like to be driven.

Would they call me a diva if I were a guy?

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.

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'.