The quality of our surroundings has a direct influence on the quality of our lives we believe, whether at home, in the workplace, in cultural buildings or in the public realm.

The same thinking applies at the larger scale of infrastructure, whether that of a metro system, an airport, a city centre or a regional plan.

Design in that sense is allembracing, ranging from the functional and environmental performance of a building, to the concern for its physical and cultural context. Also it is a concern for the ‘poetic’ dimension, such as that we find in the modeling and sculpting of spaces by natural light.