ABSTRACT
Twentieth-century architecture was influenced by a single analogy coined by the great French architect, Le Corbusier. He proposed that ‘the building is a machine for living in’. This is very far from the truth. The mistake, at its heart, is that a machine is an inanimate object that can be turned on and off and operates only at the whim of its controller. A building is very different because, although it is true that it can be controlled by its occupants, the driving force that acts upon the building to create comfort and shelter is the climate and its weather, neither of which can be controlled, predicted or turned on and off.
