Until I was six years old we lived in the projects, then my two brothers and three sisters and I moved to a three-bed that my mother's father built.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My dad designed houses and was an architect for many years.
I came to architecture from building. Because my father was a builder, everybody was - and is - a builder in my family.
My family actually moved a lot growing up. I really only lived in one place every five or six years, and then we'd move again. That was just for my dad's work.
I was the oldest of the children in my family. I had to do a lot of diaper-changing and lunch-making. I was taking my little sister to ballet, picking up my brother, sort of being a super-nanny.
I grew up in a two-bedroom house with my grandfather, my mom and dad and four kids. I slept on the couch or on the floor, and I always wanted to have my own space.
I grew up in a family of nine kids.
I was built up from my dad more than anyone else.
Growing up, we didn't have anything. My mum wasn't well, so I was in three care homes then foster homes before me and my little brother went back to her. I was passed from pillar to post.
My father liked doing carpentry work, construction work, in the summer vacation. And so my mother designed a cabin, a log cabin, like a - it was like a Swiss chalet. I was twelve years old, and my father and I built it on a rocky point peninsula out into Lake Superior.
When I was nine years old, my family lost our home, and the six of us moved into my grandparents' converted garage.