The news of British architect Will Alsop's death over the weekend was met with an outpouring of sympathy from fellow architects and journalists around the web.

A recipient of the RIBA's Stirling Prize for his Peckham Library building in 2000, an avid painter, and master of seemingly floating buildings on playful stilts, Alsop never settled for the expected but rather embraced the 'maverick' reputation for balancing genius and wacky, recognized and controversial.

"Will has inspired generations and impacted many lives through his work," Marcos Rosello, director of Alsop's firm aLL Design, said in response of his passing. "It is a comfort to know that due to the nature of Will’s work and character, he will continue to inspire and bring great joy. He had an exceptional ability to recognize particular strengths in individuals which he would draw out and nurture. His design ethos, essentially to ‘make life better’, is evident in the architecture of his buildings and their surrounding communities. We will miss him greatly."

"Architects are the only profession that actually deal in joy and delight—all the others deal in doom and gloom," Alsop famously said in a 2007 interview with The Observer.

Joy, fun, and playfulness were continuing themes in his architectural output all the way to his final works, two new subway stations in Toronto bearing Alsop's trademark outlandish style as part of the city's metro expansion. On the opening day earlier this year, he remarked: "On one of these really cold, miserable January mornings, there will be people down there traveling to a job they’d probably rather not do. I want them to feel a little bit of cheer, a little bit of joy."

Toronto is also home to Alsop's most internationally recognized building, the stilted, boxy Sharp Centre extension to the Ontario College of Art and Design, having reportedly increased the city's tourism by 2.5%.

Nick Patch of the Toronto Star praises the building for igniting architectural creativity in Toronto: "Perhaps some amount of credit is due to Alsop’s checkerboard in the sky, which with playful irreverence, set a bar for risk-taking architecture in the city just ahead of a transformative boom in reimagining Toronto’s cultural icons."

Former RIBA president Stephen Hodder had this to say: "I was a judge for the Stirling Prize in 1997 when arguably Alsop’s Grand Bleu in Marseilles should have won, and on the RIBA Awards Group in 2000 when Peckham Library did win. I came to know Will for his ebullience, wit, and orthodox-challenging architecture."

"Charming" and "funny" are the characteristics mentioned most often when remembering Will Alsop, the man. His work regularly pushed the envelope a little too far, was considered unbuildable at its time, often unfinanceable, always outlandish, but his legacy remains and he will be remembered for blazing the trail.

Will Alsop died on May 12, at age 70, after a short illness.

We have all been privately mourning Will Alsop. Today, the first day back in the office, we want to celebrate a life that has touched so many; remember the good times and share them, there are so many. Celebrate his life the way you feel you should, we will. @ALLDesign1 pic.twitter.com/jnwDJUBCbT

— Marcos Rosello (@marcos_rosello) May 14, 2018