The architect behind the master plan to re-invent Middlesbrough says he is no prima donna.

Will Alsop heaps affectionate praise on his mentor, the late Cedric Price, with whom he worked and learnt so much, back in the 1970s.

Mr Alsop sees the task of transforming 250 acres of derelict Middlesbrough waterfront as daunting.

He frankly admits to, initially, not knowing a great deal about the area.

"When we arrived in the Tees Valley, we knew very little about the region except that it had provided the inspiration for Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. What we found was a brave, beautiful landscape inhabited by a series of massive objects.

"Our response emerged quickly - we would create a beautiful landscape for Middlehaven - a landscape fit for the 21st Century and inhabited by 21st Century icons - extraordinary objects sitting proudly in a new and extraordinary landscape.''

Mr Alsop, who is designing an hotel for Walsall, sheathed in leather, said: "I believe architecture is more an art than a science."

That could explain some of the fantastic shapes to be given to buildings planned for Middlehaven, ranging from a champagne glass shaped hotel, to Prada skirt shaped apartments and a theatre which looks like a toaster.

He admits his personal favourite is a shed-like design for Middlesbrough College.

"I like a shed. You can do anything in a shed, throw anything around in a shed."

Leaving school at 15, he worked as a tea boy at a local architects in home town Northampton and enrolled at art school.

He went on to study at the Architectural Association, in London, spending his final year at the British School in Rome.

He then joined the practice of Cedric Price, designer of the Snowdon Aviary in London's Regent's Park in 1975 and spent five years there.

In 1979 he started his own practice at a studio in Hammersmith, which kept on growing.

He now has offices in London and Rotterdam, winning commissions at home and abroad, including an hotel in Marseilles which now receives one million visitors a year, and an art college in Toronto which has become a tourist attraction and has more students applying for places than it can handle.

He likes making use of colours in his designs but does not like them described as "wacky"