The one thing all humans share is that we all inhabit the same limited amount of real estate, which is Planet Earth.
Architecture is restricted to such a limited vocabulary. A building is either a high-rise or a perimeter block or a town house.
Maybe our work appeals to some people more than others. But the opportunities that I present to my colleagues are completely uninfluenced by gender, race, sexual orientation, or religion.
St. Petersburg is a wonderful city. You have wonderful parks, birds singing in the trees, manatees in the water, pelicans. So it's like this little paradise on Earth.
I don't have to come up with the best idea. It is my job to make sure that it is always the best idea that wins.
Something like 'Abstract' can really give people access to the behind-the-scenes of how our physical surroundings take shape.
I think the avant-garde often hides itself in the highly incomprehensible because they are frustrated that the real world is so boring.
I love computer programmers. They have a very beautiful definition of complexity as 'the capacity to transmit the maximum information with the minimum data'.
Today, we have sophisticated building technology: we can calculate and simulate the environments and performance of the building, the thermal exposure of envelop, or the air flow through an urban space or structure.
I think the biggest backhanded criticism-compliment I get is that I'm 'good at communicating.' Which implies that you're bad at doing.
Silicon Valley has been this global engine of innovation and economic growth over the last few decades, but a tidal wave of innovation that has been focused very much in the digital realm.
I really focus on the ball, I really focus on the work, and I really focus on creating all the growth opportunities for anyone in the organisation that's willing to do it.
People outside the profession of architecture perhaps often lack the understanding of how their physical environment comes into being. What are the processes, the concerns and considerations? What are the parameters that shape the world around them?
We can engineer a building and design a building with least reliance on active machinery to make it inhabitable.
New York is flat - it's ideal for bicycling.
All comic books take place in built environments, and I was very good at drawing people and animals, and stuff like that, but I hadn't spent much energy drawing buildings. So I thought, maybe I could, and then I became an architect.
All evidence shows that we are actually getting smarter. Roughly we are getting 10 IQ points smarter every decade. The speed of innovation is also faster.
My drawing skills probably froze around when I was 18... Now I'm more interested in the story, how the drawings, the layout can help express the stories and communicate them.
If I was misogynist, would I hire a woman as my CEO? Probably not. I grew up in Denmark, for crying out loud. Denmark is probably one of the places where equality is actually fully achieved. Our political system is practically a matriarchy.
When I moved to America, everybody was asking, 'Why the hell are you going to America? It's over; you should be going east.' But it turned out our timing was miraculous.
