Green issues have been used as a marketing tool. Sometimes these green claims are completely meaningless.
One of my greatest influences is the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
I was in Peru and visited a building near Lima built by the Incas. It was low in height, with no windows at all, but all the way in the back there was air movement. And I couldn't figure out how they'd done it; it was incredible.
And I realized, when I'd come in to the meetings with these corrugated metal and chain link stuff, and people would just look at me like I'd just landed from Mars. But I couldn't do anything else. That was my response to the people and the time.
I approach each project with a new insecurity, almost like the first project I ever did, and I get the sweats, I go in and start working, I'm not sure where I'm going.
Look, architecture has a lot of places to hide behind, a lot of excuses. 'The client made me do this.' 'The city made me do this.' 'Oh, the budget.' I don't believe that anymore.
This neo-minimalism super cold stuff is weird to me. I need a place where I can come home and take my shoes off.
I have always thought that L.A. is a motor city that developed linear downtowns.
There are people who design buildings that are not technically and financially good, and there are those who do. Two categories - simple.
I can't just decide myself what's being built. Someone decides what they want, then I work for them.
On certain projects, on big public projects, people definitely are interested in making them greener, but on smaller projects with tight budgets it can be harder.
My father was an urchin that lived in Hell's Kitchen. He was part of a family of nine. I mean, there were times that were better and worse, but mostly, by the time we got to L.A., they'd lost whatever they had. And it was a sad time. And both he and I became truck drivers for different companies.
My only extravagance in life is my sailboat. I'm bonkers about that, but other than that, I don't spend money on myself.
I refuse to work unless I get paid, so I don't get a lot of work sometimes.
I promised a lot of people I'd slow down when I turned 80.
I don't know how to overcome this perception that I'm extravagant.
