ABSTRACT
Most people acknowledge that our environment faces major challenges. But, as this chapter identifies and contextualizes, these extend beyond the commonly recognized. The mega-ecology that sustains planetary life needs urgent healing. But, equally pressing to remedy, as they affect physiological and psychological health, are the multi-level, multi-sensory surroundings we experience daily. These influence social behaviour, hence our values and motivations. This contrasts the apparently unrelated experiential and the ecologically structural. But these reciprocally impact each other: the mega affects the local; the local how we treat the global. Furthermore, as attitudinal changes are the essential foundations for sustainability, experiential quality is integral to its achievement. But as evolution shapes places more than design does, it’s more effective to focus on formative processes before finalizing architectural form. Consequently, the ensuing shifts of emphasis from invisible technology to lived experience, and from solution to process, challenge current approaches to architectural and urban design.
