Ideas and reality meld

AT 70, most people are likely to be taking it slow, enjoying the finer things in life. But not American architect Thom Mayne. Instead, his life has gotten even busier. He has been away from his office in the United States for the past two and a half weeks, having spent much of that time in Sydney and Perth, before arriving in Singapore this week to be on the jury panel for the President's Design Award. Then he's off to China where he is working on several projects. Architecture, he says, is like being in a long distance run. He started his career at 27, "but it was only when I was 50 that I was getting a series of larger works, then everything started speeding up, which is completely typical of an architect's life."

Ask him what has been the best moment of his 43-year career, and he says it is difficult to pinpoint one moment. "It's getting better and better and I love it. I have never had more fun."

He says: "Architecture is completely out of sync with the current world, which is moving at the speed of light. Young people today have a much shorter fuse, and I often tell younger architects to keep at what they are doing, to get the serious work."