“What’s important for you when you meet a young architect?

 I need that sparkle in the eyes! I need to understand that there is a passion about architecture! If that’s not there, it’s difficult. Of course, they need to be skilled, good with computers and 3D modeling, so they should deal with a large spectrum of different media. But I need the sparkle!”

“I can well remember the year 1999: we had nothing to do, no job at all and we wanted to open a pizza place as a family business because architecture didn’t work at all. We had thought about this for a week but decided to return to architecture. I think it is very important that you have some people with you from the beginning of your career because that helps you grow. I think the moments when you start questioning what has to be changed are crucial.“

“I’ve worked with Zaha Hadid for 21 years – soon to be 22.(…) Architects don’t build buildings – they design buildings geometries and define the immaterial aspects of architecture. Architecture with a capital ‘A’ encompasses all sorts of different things – emotional intelligence referring to the materials and colours or the psychology of the place and the way it interacts with you. Architecture is not only about buildings – it’s the whole process behind it.”

“The thing that I find interesting about architecture is talking to people, in a spatial language, about their reality (…) . It is a whole journey in the mind of the architect.”

“At that particular time, when I was working with Zaha, deconstructivism sort of destroyed everything, but it hasn’t been set aside yet, although we feel there are certain challenges we’re all facing globally: sustainability and the complexity of integrating everything into architecture are other aspects related to that. The present is a bit confusing because I cannot recognise the values I am searching for in any project – I see a lot of ‘in your face’ advertisements of shapes and forms and everything is possible; everybody has a good sales story about the righteousness in what they are doing but is it really that good? What makes something convincing and valuable for a longer period of time?”

“If you don’t have social skills – the ability to work in a group and be open to other people’s views and opinions – you won’t work in a group like Snøhetta. You can be as good an architect you want but if you lack social abilities, this is not a smart place to start working at.”

“As a landscape architect and a planner, architecture has a more timeless notion to me. What we should make is creating good cities and living environments that people are happy with now and one hundred years from now, places that are easy to transform and can gradually change themselves.“

“I think artificial intelligence will make everything much faster. You’ll have decision support tools: we’re developing one ourselves at the moment, we’re working on the first 7D BIM project we don’t believe it’s been done anywhere in the world before, which is a BIM model that will have whole life cost and whole carbon data embedded in the model, so as you develop it from concept through design, through construction, through to occupation and use, it can automatically tell your clients how the whole life cost will change for thirty years.“

“When I was at OMA we had a small PR team and today at MVRDV I have editors from big media that work for me. We now pay for photographs, writers and we are doing the journalism of the past in the editing studios. Of course, it is expensive and if you can’t afford to pay for it as a small office or firm, you should still do these things by learning how to communicate, to write and deliver your own creations in a way that attracts people.“

“I think you really have to be passionate. It is not a job – to be an architect is a way of life. You work all the time, you really don’t stop, but it is not a problem because it is what one chooses to do.“

“I truly believe that in order to make good architecture you have to completely change your personality as an architect. Ten or twenty years ago we were artists: now we are advisers. Architecture needs much more complex personalities right now. Because of the financial crisis, a lot of the investors’ trust in architecture is gone and the social responsibility is high for architects. They have to able to change people’s way of thinking on ethical behavior.“

“There were no universities in Cyprus at all when I started, so all the people who wanted to study had to go abroad(..)The work picked up slowly but it was really difficult in the beginning; there were also happier times when I was feeling like an artist who had been educating the community.”

“I think architects, journalists, attorneys or politicians are people who must adapt to current changes and nowadays changes are faster (…) However, you must not lose your common sense because it lasts forever.”

“The problem is that people think of LIGHT as something that is given – they take it for granted. You can only understand the power of something when you don’t have it – light: it very much resembles freedom.”