Obviously, the highest type of efficiency is that which can utilize existing material to the best advantage.
Modern architecture does not mean the use of immature new materials; the main thing is to refine materials in a more human direction.
I consider a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials.
In our ephemeral information age, people think we've left behind the stone, bronze, and iron ages. But they're all still going on - we use tonnes of this stuff every day. You just have to look.
My objective is to design a space that nobody else can come up with while using the material that anyone can use.
There has to be policies about that, about what materials we use and so on.
Here we are surrounded by material that's being manufactured in unimaginable quantities worldwide and is used everywhere. I don't like it, no one likes it, and yet it's pervasive. We don't even see it.
We must remember that everything depends on how we use a material, not on the material itself... New materials are not necessarily superior. Each material is only what we make it.
Each material has its specific characteristics which we must understand if we want to use it. This is no less true of steel and concrete.
I'm not mannerist. I don't think I'm interested in mannerism. If I ever use it in a way, or if manner is like some kind of product of certain sorts of usage of different kinds of materials, then it's about involution or turning in on that.
We're stuck in the concrete age. Concrete has really become this ever-present material that's almost impossible to get away from. It's cheap, abundant, and easy to work with, and to an extent, that's good.
European toilet paper is made from the same material that Americans use for roofing, which is why Europeans tend to remain standing throughout soccer matches.
