It should come as no surprise that Richard Rogers -- the architect responsible for the famously inside-out designs of Centre Pompidou and the Lloyd's building -- is once again turning his gaze outwards. Rogers' buildings have always held a powerful dialogue with the public spaces that surround them -- the Pompidou, after all, is as much defined by its teeming piazza as by its technicolor heating ducts -- and his UK firm has overseen large-scale master-planning projects in Shanghai and Berlin. But in recent years, Rogers has thrown himself into the public debate over broader issues of urban sustainability and inner-city renewal. Among architects, only Rem Koolhaas rivals Rogers as a theorist of urban life -- and Koolhaas doesn't have the ear of Tony Blair.

In his 1994 Reith Lectures, and his subsequent book, Cities For a Small Planet, Rogers argues passionately -- and publicly -- for environmentally and socially responsible forms of urban planning and design. "Making cities sustainable demands fundamental changes in human behavior, in the practice of government, commerce, architecture, and city planning," he writes in Cities. "The developer who builds for purely commercial returns, with no commitment to the city's environment nor to the quality of life of its citizens, is misusing technology. So too is the planner who drives a motorway through the middle of a city without regard for the broader environment or social issues."

Rogers had the opportunity to translate his vision of a small-planet city into public policy when Britain's Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, asked him to head an urban task force to evaluate the state of Britain's towns and cities, using "a projected increase of 3.8 million households over a 25 year period as an opportunity to revitalize our towns and cities." (The final report -- called Towards An Urban Renaissance -- was released earlier this year.) Roger's other high-profile forays into the public sphere include the Millennium Dome project, and a long-term effort to revitalize the civic space along the banks of the Thames. (Appointed a Life Peer in 1996, Rogers chose the title "Lord Of Riverside" to signify his commitment to the city's long-neglected waterfront.) I met up with Rogers in London at his Chelsea residence -- a pair of hollowed-out Georgian townhouses sparsely decorated with Warhol Maos and Wallpaper-ish furniture -- where we talked about his latest projects, Centre Pompidou tourists, automobiles, and Starbucks.