[Troubadour]

There are places where nature is exquisitely beautiful, and so the people humble their architecture to avoid competing with it. There are places where nature is vacant or repulsive, so architecture is everything. But the most special places are the ones where nature and architecture enter into a dialog, if not make love to each other. They do not articulate nature as separate from, subordinate to, or dominant of humanity, but rather paint a picture of a vast cosmos in which what we do is an expression of something every bit as deep and natural as the trees around it.

Nature in these areas is not neglected, and yet it remains nature - it has a personality distinct from the whims of the human inhabitants. The built environment is neither piously stifled nor desperately compulsive, but a kind of resonant expression feeding into and fed back from the living things surrounding. It can be rational or organic, but in either case regards nature with loving awareness: Green things are not mere decorations, but inhabitants and forces that shape by their own nature.

Use this thread to post examples of nature and architecture in a close, loving relationship.