In Nicaragua liberty equality and the rule of law were the stuff of dreams. But in Paris I discovered the value of those words.

The buildings that I build very often have a dreamlike reality. I don't mean by that they have a fantasy quality at all in fact quite the reverse. They contain in some degree the ingredients that give dreams their power... stuff that's very close to us.

My father his spirit is with me constantly and I'm a believer in that world and the world of dreams and that stuff.

Like all young reporters - brilliant or hopelessly incompetent - I dreamed of the glamorous life of the foreign correspondent: prowling Vienna in a Burberry trench coat speaking a dozen languages to dangerous women narrowly escaping Sardinian bandits - the usual stuff that newspaper dreams are made of.

Look at the average American diet: ice cream butter cheese whole milk all this fat. People don't realize how much of this stuff you get by the end of the day. High blood pressure is from all this high-fat eating.

The point is that I don't design stuff for myself. I'm a toolmaker. I design things that other people want to use.

My training as an engineer has enabled me to design the stuff but the reason I do it is not to make music but for the opportunity to work with musicians.

I think gardens are fantastic and I'd love to draw and design and stuff like that. I love just planting flowers during the summer. There's something very humble about it and natural and beautiful.

It's funny now how much we look at - whatever you want to call it: art design culture stuff film - online and how in the online world you're instantly global.

Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair but simply an integral part of the stuff of life necessary for everyone in a civilized society.