As an undergraduate, I learned the nuts and bolts of putting a building together. We had design classes, but back then it was centered primarily on solving a problem (what) rather than the theory or the conceptual underpinnings (why). My junior year, I was introduced to a Fulbright scholar by the name of Svein Tonsager, who was an influential teacher from the architecture school in Aarhus, Denmark. Svein introduced me to a new way of looking at architecture from a design and theory perspective — he literally reset my architectural education tabula rasa.

I decided then and there to pursue design theory in my graduate work and went to the University of Michigan. Their library is profound, and it helped me to continue my thirst for theory — I read everything from Vitruvius to Venturi. I was able to be in front of talented practitioners like Tod Williams, Dan Hoffman from Cranbrook, Peter Eisenman, and Michael Graves. At the time, Kent Kleinman, who today is dean at Columbia University, was one of my professors. The program gave me a rich, hands-on education in design and theory.