I wanted to improve the suburban office building; to create a great urban space in a suburban environment with all that implies about interaction, collaboration and creativity.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
In the traditional modernist planning that created the suburbs, you put residential buildings in suburban neighborhoods, office spaces into brain parks and retail in shopping malls. But you fail to exploit the possibility of symbiosis or synthesis that way.
A city building, you experience when you walk; a suburban building, you experience when you drive.
The social and physical construction of suburban America really was quite complex. It was a very elaborate system, and clearly a massive social engineering project that has changed U.S. society enormously.
The shock I had, from moving from L.A. to New York, you know, whether you live in an apartment, whether you like to or not, it's cramped, it's crowded and it needs - guess what - a renovation.
I've never looked at a suburban building as being a minor building and an urban building as being a major building.
I realized that I loved using computers to create something, but being an architect just wasn't going to keep me interested. The idea of a life spent obsessing over bathroom details for an Upper East Side penthouse was pretty depressing.
I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It's not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.
I studied architecture in New York. So, really I was very moved, like everyone else, to try to contribute something that has that resonance and profundity of it means to all of us.
Everyone's looking to the urban scene for inspiration now.
You know, I don't really understand a suburban environment. I want to be out in the woods, I want to be where it's wild, I want to wake up and hear birds, I want to walk outside and see a gaggle of turkeys bouncing across my lawn - I want to be someplace like that - or I want to be right in the middle of an urban environment.