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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.

I've always been fascinated with how transportation systems work and how cities are designed.

A lot of the interesting issues and dynamics within a city occur over things such as socio-economic issues or ethnic issues. But they require a much more elaborate model of human behavior.

My belief, for what it is worth, is that city dwellers cannot understand the world. Insulated from reality by complex and expert systems of provision and police, baffled by fashion and spectacle, city dwellers can distinguish neither the sources of their existence nor the consequences.

My primary interest has always been about exploring the human psyche and humanity.

I know people like spectacle, but I'm interested in moving people.

From childhood my mother had me examining Robert Mapplethorpe's style and Egon Schiele's framing - that's what modelling is about.

The stuff that I find really intriguing is always how do ordinary people behave in extraordinary circumstances. And that's why we have a lot of cop shows and lawyer shows and medical shows is that you're looking for situations that just always heighten the stakes.

The body moves through space every day, and in architecture in cities that can be orchestrated. Not in a dictatorial fashion, but in a way of creating options, open-ended sort of personal itineraries within a building. And I see that as akin to cinematography or choreography, where episodic movement, episodic moments, occur in dance and film.

In all big cities the style of life is the same. Same endless array of restaurants; same big museums with the usual suspects; same anonymity, which can be thrilling when you're young but which I found got tiresome.