An architect once described in a lecture how he suddenly realized that working on a team renovating an apartment housing community, no one on the team invested much time in visiting and talking with the people who would utilize that housing the most. He recognized that he was in a mostly male team, and that most of the people using the environment would be moms and children during daytime.
This startled him into sensing that much design is created in an aloof environment away from the site environment. A friend, trained as an architect, later a project manager in online applications and web design, realized much the same; experts design often for the thrill of turning out the next great thing, and then move on, eager for the next and the next, to take on challenges, prove skills, build a portfolio - and get paid. The end-user of technology often gets shorted in the process.
Perhaps there is a trinity of design, use and nature in any building project. It seems we usually think primarily in terms of developers, architects, government agencies, contractors plus brokers and agents, and buyers, renters or lessees.
People in the business of building have been looked to as the developers of practical solutions. Now it is becoming clearly functional and effective to save energy, including embodied energy, in our buildings.
http://www.architecture2030.org/
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Net_energy_analysis
Add beauty and use, and we may see that architecture emerges in fresh celebration of the natural.
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