 More people studying architecture is a good thing because it raises the awareness of what architecture can be. And that's a significant impact, has a significant impact on the culture. I mean, the overall American culture is not one that supports across the board good architecture. It doesn't hackneyed phrase making places. It doesn't do that. Students who enter schools of architecture today are entering it at a very young age. Perhaps when their total world experience and awareness is relatively narrow and they're making a decision to become a practicing architect and putting aside those studies as general ed, as liberal art studies that might actually in the end make them more contributing architects. The idea of reading a treatise on philosophy, the idea of being able to write a poem, the idea of being able to understand a particular piece of science, all those things, all those pieces that are not necessarily architecturally directed are very important in becoming a good architect. And fewer and fewer people are having that basic liberal arts general ed knowledge in the profession. This is a serious problem. There's the belief that students can't handle the complexity that multiple issues in a project might require. I don't believe that's true. And I think if the students can't handle that complexity, especially in the later years of their curriculum, they shouldn't be architects. And that may sound elitist or narrowing of the opportunity for the general public to enter the profession but I don't think it is. I think it would protect the profession and it would protect the outcome of our work to have people who are more able to do the work. And I have a concern that the people entering schools of architecture are inexperienced and unaware of all the choices that they might have in terms of careers and choosing it at a very young age with a narrow idea of what it's really about. In Italy, where thousands of people study architecture, they're studying architecture for exactly that reason to become aware of a piece of their lives, a piece of the culture that's important to them. They don't necessarily enter that study with the idea of being a practicing architect and that's a major difference in our culture. People in this country go to the School of Architecture with the intention of becoming an architect, of having that shingle, being able to call yourself an architect and be involved in the process of designing. I wish it were more like the Italians. I wish people would study architecture just to become aware of what it can be to be able to analyze it, to discuss it, to make decisions about how it should be. And that's not the case. And the other issue with that, when you study architecture in Italy or you study architecture in the Netherlands, there's this balance between ideas and how you make something. Our schools are very theoretical. We spend a lot of time churning ideas. We spend a lot of time on theory. We spend a lot of time on the philosophy of architecture and not so much about actually how you make it. And you can't do one without the other. You have to do both. Well, we're not making very good things in New York. It's New York's not alone. We're not making good things in San Francisco. We're not making good things in Philadelphia. We're not making things which are rich in character. They're two-dimensional. They don't give the inhabitants choices. They don't... In many cases, they're not even comfortable. But they're not dealing with energy issues. I am amazed that residential buildings in the United States do not have a place... Every unit, whether you're at the second level, at the ground level, or at the 15th level, there should be a place to go outside. There should be a place to have a small garden. If it's a place to sit and read a paper and breathe the air. We don't do that. That should be a natural part of the discussion. There should be places along the street where, in good weather, people can be on the outside. There should be variety in architecture and planning. It's not happening. Things are getting more two-dimensional. They're getting flatter. There's a huge emphasis in schools of architecture on the skin and the theory of the building skin. It's fine if it has to do with the energy issues or the light issues or even the opening and closing according to seasons. But it's more than just the geometry of the skin. It's more than just the detailing of the skin unless it's for those purposes I just mentioned. It's not new that people have said that bad building is not architecture. I'd rather say that there's good architecture and there's bad architecture. Building is architecture. It may be that it's so discomforting that we don't want to call it that, but it is. Architecture has great variety. There are some very modest places that are wonderful and there are some very grand places that are terrible. I'm always amazed that people do buildings with consideration of the place or the outdoor space. I'm amazed that, especially in the United States, there's so little concern with what happens and what Lucan used to call the in-between space, the space between the outdoors and the indoors. We've lost that. It doesn't exist anymore. We have a slab and we push through an opening at the ground level and there's no sensitivity about the human experience of maybe slowing down and understanding that you're moving from one place to another. Our architecture is less sensitive than it could be and it's less rich than it could be. There's a traditional trio. It's still traditional and it's still the majority but it's not always equal. That's the architect, the owner and the contractor. Whether the contractor is a construction manager, whether the architect is a group of architects and engineers or whether the owner is the board, those three people working together. The architect has no legal agreement with the contractor. The owner has legal agreements with the architect and the contractor. The owner is more involved as a funder, as a final decision maker. But the owner needs direction and the owner needs guidance and that guidance can come from the contractor or the guidance from the architect and more and more for perhaps reasons of finance, reasons of timeliness, more and more contractors are making the decisions. They may select a material because you can get it now. You may select a material because it's less money than something else but that may not be the best thing to do in the long run or even in the short run. The architect's job is to find reasons and to be able to convince the owner that what they're proposing is the right thing to do. I think architects need great rhetorical skills but they need great analytical skills and they need to present all the conditions. You have a much better chance of convincing someone to do something if you can give them multiple reasons. You'll get good publicity. You do it because it's going to save energy. You're going to do it because it's going to give you the lowest maintenance over time. I care about the inspiration but it's the facts often that will convince somebody whether or not to do something. And the inspiration is important too but that often times it's hard to make a client who doesn't understand inspiration feel it. Because we have the knowledge of history and we have the knowledge of what makes a good building nobody else studies that. Nobody studies contractors and construction management. They don't study what is a good space. They don't know about light or shadow patterns. They don't know about energy and temperature. They don't think about that. They may look at different systems in terms of cost options and efficiencies which we do too but we have a broader view of it. I think we have a view of it that gives us more information about how to make decisions on those other than just an efficiency or a cost item or does it fit the... mechanically does it fit the dimensions of the space. I recently was in Vermont and I was driving around in a section of the Green Mountains and I left the Green Mountains and was in a little village and there were these beautiful new little modest houses that were smart. They had the right orientation. They had awnings and they had few windows on the north side and they were just sighted beautifully with the topography and I went up and knocked on the door and said, who's the architect who did this? And was told that there was no architect, that there was a housewright who was doing it who had just lived in Vermont all his life and understood the place and was making houses that were right for that spot. We need more architects like that. That person had a lot of knowledge. That person had a huge body of knowledge. I'm not so sure what the knowledge is that we architects have now and I'm especially unsure of if we're fostering a pattern of gaining knowledge in our schools of architecture.