I do very little industrial design. I'm asked a lot, but I certainly don't see myself as an industrial designer.

It is difficult to separate oneself from one's design moralities.

I like to be surrounded by books. My wife Evelyn has a Ph.D. in comparative literature, so we have a lot of her Spanish and German literature books which are wasted on me, plus a lot of novels and books on art and architecture shared by us both. Evelyn used to edit an art magazine called 'FMR,' so we have a common interest in design.

I do quite like Gehry's Guggenheim. But where in Bilbao it's seen as an outgrowth of years of investment in urban design and engineering, in Britain it's seen as the catalyst for urban regeneration rather than the icing on the cake.

Certainly, when you train as a classical dancer, you are very much influenced by 'Giselle.' You see it all the time; you start to learn the steps a little.

If you look at a building by Mies van der Rohe, it might look very simple, but up close, the sheer quality of construction, materials and thought are inspirational.