As an architect, planner, and urban historian, I believe that architecture cannot simply be about self-expression. Instead I see its mission as the attempt to capture the culture of the place within a framework of poetic sensitivity and political position. As a designer, I believe in architecture as the art of narrative, or good story telling. It is my conviction that architectural projects should be conceived as sound arguments. As a historian of urban form, I also believe that buildings and their surrounding contexts often communicate their embedded propositions and assumptions.