The idea of the conference rests with facing our fears. About waking up from a dream called architecture and accepting the rawness of what we see as something in which we can seek and find beauty. And we must find this beauty and we must make this beauty.

After all, we are in the world we made.

It is a planet that suffers from our fears.

And our fears suffer from our desires.

It is a planet made of the human mind; the human psychological need to exist in more than matter.

Our artificial cultivation of the natural world proves a complexity exists in our interrelation with our earth; and I love the complexity innate in our being, innate in that so ephemeral thing called life.

The point of this conference is not the theme. It is that we come together, in all our interest and all our care for that which we do. In all our interest and all our care about doing it better.

We are here to reflect on how we spend our days as architects. How we spend our days as a people.

After all, the way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives.

– Speech in Melbourne, National Architecture conference for the AIA, April 2011