Ma Yansong Quotes

Architecture is by definition a very collaborative process.

Architecture doesn't come from theory. You don't think your way through a building.

My father is an architect, so I often think like a designer or an architect. I remember when I was admiring buildings, I would look up at them and see this perspective and this awesome power of the monument in front of me.

Architects often have a mindset where you solve a problem, so you have a set of needs that you have to address. Often I feel that my projects have to have concrete applications.

I don't really get things very... intuitively. I mean, I don't immediately understand things. The only way I really get it is by writing it down.

The world presents enough problems if you believe it to be a world of law and order; do not add to them by believing it to be a world of miracles.

Drawings help people to work out intricate relationships between parts.

When you design a building, you start from a general philosophy, and you come down, and you start from detail and come up. Only the theoretical architect believes that you can make the concept and then sometime, somebody will come to build it.

Architecture students are generally given theoretical projects, often located at distant locations, and told to come up with a design.

I am but an architectural composer.

I am a linear thinker in a lot of ways.

Something like 'Abstract' can really give people access to the behind-the-scenes of how our physical surroundings take shape.

Architects like to work in a problematic environment.

Just taking a piece of dirt and envisioning the building you'd like to put on it - it's an amazing process.

I don't think I'm always right, but I would like to empower people to come to sound conclusions using a systematic way of looking at things.

I have a very linear mind.

With method and logic one can accomplish anything.

I think about architecture all the time. That's the problem. But I've always been like that. I dream it sometimes.

It's not wrong to be skeptical. I was one who participated in the debate on Iraq and voted against the resolution because I was skeptical of the intelligence. But that was based on looking at the facts, analyzing the case in as rational and as logical way as you can, not simply concluding or dismissing facts.

I always try to stay methodical and logical with everything I do, playing cricket and making decisions.

Engineering is about finding solutions with a commitment to ongoing refinement. That's what engineering training teaches you.

Being a scientist/engineer by nature, I approach everything as a problem.

Eighty percent of my job is to ask the question, 'If this were real, what would it look like?'

Even if you're going into a field that has nothing to do with computer science, just having that way of analytical thinking and being able to process information and break it down is important no matter what you're doing. Having that knowledge of code is something that you can apply to your daily life.

Design is thinking made visual.