Well, the problem with architecture is that it’s a long process. Many of the bigger projects that we have — and even the smaller ones — tend to take three years minimum but they can also go on for five or 10 years. So there is no real single defining moment in the way that there sometimes is with other creative processes. It’s not like in theater, where you think, “Okay, tonight’s the opening night,” and then you all go out for a drink afterwards. A building is progressively being completed, even on the day of the opening! I think the point when you can really stand back is a little bit later, maybe one year later.

Well, if you write the way I do, which means that you start something and you rewrite it, especially the beginning part, you rewrite it time and time and time again, at some point you feel, not that it’s beyond repair, but that there’s nothing more you can do to fix it. In other words, as far as you’re concerned, that’s what you were going to write.

I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn’t be ours anymore.

I’m the worst about this. I often don’t know. I’ll have 14 small victories while I’m working on something. I’m like, “It’s done,” and I show it to somebody and they’re like, “Is it?” They ask me a couple questions, or I’ll realize myself like, “I think it’s done,” and then a few days later I’ll realize that, “Oh no, I’m still having ideas about it.”

There’s a first part of observing the thing, or having the idea, but then a huge amount of the next step’s work is: “What do I want to do about it? What form should it take? What am I going to do now do about it having observed it?” That is sometimes a part where it can take a long time to work out. Sometimes I get stuck. Sometimes I change my mind or have to think of very different strategies to figure out what the right one is.