I founded my design firm, Office of Mobile Design, in 1998 to work on transportable and demountable environments—what many people refer to as prefab or container homes. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with mobility. As a child, I turned wood blocks and Hot Wheels into cities of flying cars, ran a mobile candy store, and broke my knee while riding my bike down a hill in front of my house with roller skates on. It’s in my blood.

On a shelf in my office sits a wind-up metal robot-vendor toy, a gift I received when I was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard. I spent that year exploring the use of intelligent, kinetic, lightweight materials. Today the whirling toy reminds me of when I owned and operated a hot dog cart while putting myself through graduate school at SCI-Arc. (I followed in the footsteps of my maternal grandfather, who had a hotdog cart on Coney Island.) My record-breaking sales day came at a Grateful Dead concert. I ran out of dogs and made do with mustard, sauerkraut, and buns. But most of all, the toy reminds me that joy can be found in simplicity and through living lighter on the land, which remains my true life’s work.