A city, far from being a cluster of buildings, is actually a sequence of spaces enclosed and defined by buildings.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Architecture is restricted to such a limited vocabulary. A building is either a high-rise or a perimeter block or a town house.
A city grows like an organism. It is a structure of living and working together a mix of functions.
Modern buildings of our time are so huge that one must group them. Often the space between these buildings is as important as the buildings themselves.
As architects we are often involved in the concrete-steel-and-glass aspect of it, but cities are social structures, and to be involved in imagining the future of cities and the type of relationships and the types of places that we're making is something that intrigues me very much.
Architecture is about public space held by buildings.
A city building, you experience when you walk; a suburban building, you experience when you drive.
The space within becomes the reality of the building.
Cities are about juxtaposition. In Florence, classical buildings sit against medieval buildings. It's that contrast we like. In Bordeaux, we built law courts right next door to what is effectively a listed historic building, and that makes it exciting.
The city is a body and a mind - a physical structure as well as a repository of ideas and information.
Cities are just a physical manifestation of your interactions, our interactions, and the clustering and grouping of individuals.