Being Iraqi taught me to be very cautious.

I made a decision when I was in school that I'd have a lot of male friends.

In hospital, people should be able to have time to themselves.

I can't focus when there's too many things around. Whenever I used to go to the office, I used to always say, 'Tidy up.'

You really have to have a goal.

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.

Education, housing and hospitals are the most important things for society.