Thomas Heatherwick

Ambition is a form of creativity.

My studio's passion is improving the public experience of cities for everyone.

The Learning Hub is a collection of handmade concrete towers surrounding a central space that brings everyone together, interspersed with nooks, balconies and gardens for informal collaborative learning.

Our job is to get people in, create the spaces, and then get out of the way.

I don't enjoy the sound of my voice in front of other people.

I'm not really interested in creating things to be seen inside a private gallery. I'm interested in creating things that are all around us, that engage us. I just find the things that I respond to are useful.

The studio does projects all over the world, and in each place, we focus on trying to make a project specific to that place. We take a different perspective everywhere we work - our passion is public projects, wherever they are.

When you think about the worst places humans come into contact with, they are often our health environments.

I think that human nature is scared of change and justifies it in all sort of ways.

I've always been interested in projects that work at multiple levels.

One great building does not make a great city.

I am finally getting the chance to build large structures and break preconceptions that my designs are just sculptures for people to be in. But my work always comes down to the human scale.

I studied at a time when buildings were sterile things, and their creators were hands-off people - super-intelligent people, but you felt they didn't love the stuff buildings are made from.

It gives me the creeps when I see a frame for a building going up and recognise the architect. You shouldn't know who a project is by.

Everything that we start is something that we don't know what the outcome is going to be.

Often the most important moment in the design process is figuring out what the right question is.

The Garden Bridge has not found its right moment, but I hope one day it will and that London continues to be open to ideas that make life here better.

At the root of everything I do is a fascination with ideas - what ideas are for, what jobs they do.

I don't feel I'm trying to make art. I'm trying to make interesting things. People can relate to that.

Clearly I've got an ego.