Society

Architecture has the power to democratize space - to create environments where all people, regardless of their background, can participate in civic life.

Renowned British Architect & Designer of Iconic Modern Buildings

The role of the architect is not just to create beautiful buildings, but to improve the quality of human life through the built environment.

Renowned British Architect & Designer of Iconic Modern Buildings

Architecture is a direct reflection of society - its aspirations, its achievements, its failures. It's a mirror that shows us who we are and who we want to be.

Renowned British Architect & Designer of Iconic Modern Buildings

We believe that by being open, honest and transparent with communities- they are more likely to protect, respect and patronise our projects. Our primary responsibility is to make money for our investors. That however, is not mutually exclusive to making positive change.

I typically think impact investing, on the whole, can generate better risk-adjusted yields than the alternatives.

If one wants to treat societal problems, then philanthropy and government spending are fine. If one wants to cure societal problems, one has got to come up with sustainable solutions- and that means attracting for-profit capital.

I have not been an urban investor in re-gentrification, which tries to change the character of a community and, candidly, is very speculative. Instead I look at revitalisation, which constitutes investing in existing densely populated and ethnically diverse communities and delivering the goods and services that are sought after but not provided.

In the advanced countries, it is a very challenging time for people in the middle-income and middle-education range. They are being subjected to greater competition from labour saving technology.

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

At the end of this century 40-50 years from now, the proportion of our world's population who live in the developing world will have gone from 15%, 200 years ago, to over 85% – we'll be left with a very different planet.

Nobel Prize-winning economist; Stanford provost and NYU president

I think those pictures we took did jumpstart the modern environmental movement, but it wasn't a personal change for me at that point.

Astronaut on Apollo 16 Moon Landing Mission

Clothing concerns all of the human person, all of the body, all of the relationships of man to body as well as the relationships of the body to society.

French literary theorist & semiotician; pioneer of structuralism & cultural criticism

Fashion is either one of the crowning achievements of western civilization or it is incontrovertible evidence of consumer culture's witless obsession with the trivial and the unreal.

Fashion is one of the most influential phenomena in Western civilisation since the renaissance. It has conquered an increasing number of modern man's fields of activity and has become almost 'second nature'.

The consumer is far better educated today than he ever was. Consumers don't need to rely on intermediaries to tell them what is good or bad- people are social, they share information with friends and strangers, and go to a broader community for help and assistance.

The people in the advanced countries now face a choice: we can express justified horror, or we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes. If we refuse to do the latter, we will be contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.

Renowned Linguist & Political Activist, Critic of US Foreign Policy

We even regulate toy guns, by requiring orange tips — but lawmakers don't have the gumption to stand up to National Rifle Association extremists and regulate real guns as carefully as we do toys.

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist & New York Times Columnist