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

I'm trying to discover - invent, I suppose - an architecture, and forms of urban planning, that do something of the same thing in a contemporary way. I started out trying to create buildings that would sparkle like isolated jewels; now I want them to connect, to form a new kind of landscape, to flow together with contemporary cities and the lives of their peoples.

There is a strong reciprocal relationship whereby our more ambitious design visions encourage the continuing development of the new digital technologies and fabrication techniques, and those new developments in turn inspire us to push the design envelope ever further.

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

I am equally proud of all of my architectural projects. It's always rewarding to see an ambitious design become reality.

I loved London. In the 1970s... it was very exciting, really wild.

The idea for a building or an object can come up just as quick, but there is a big difference in process.