B A K H architecture demands a different process The best architecture strives for design excellence. It’s not a quality that’s easy to define but we recognize it when we see it. It doesn’t reside only in form, style or materials. It’s reflected in the deeper attributes of appropriateness, proportion, attention to detail and celebration of craft. It’s expressed in neighborliness and a democracy of spirit. Buildings marked by design excellence are connected to their surroundings and embody the culture of the places they inhabit. They are simply open and accessible. They are built, first and foremost, for the people who use them. Their design is rooted not in fashion – of form or theory – but in the very activity by which they are realized. All architecture is grounded in the technology of its time. That was as true of the ancient Greek temple as it is of the curtain wall buildings of today. Technology defines the possible. In the twentieth century, architecture has used the vastly expanded possibilities of advanced technology to erect barriers: buildings that close out the natural world and then compensate by creating artificial environments of light and air, heat and cold within. Such “progress” has come at high cost – financial, ecological, physical and spiritual.