Architecture = Energy
Architecture is a process of reading all the relevant energies, and bringing them together in a balanced, harmonious and beautiful expression, in a tangible recognizable physical form. In the designer's process of spatial definition and arrangement they simply manipulate a myriad of elements, all of which are expressions of their individual energy systems. This process is one of handling many energy systems, usually without knowing anything more than the simple notion of building design.
We direct, share and modify the effects and impacts of energy systems in everything we do. The end result is expressed in a tangible, recognizable physical form. The terms 'conservation', 'low energy' and 'pollution' as we know and use them describe symptoms of constructs developed from the way in which we use or abuse energy.

Building Material = Energy
Selection of materials involves the designer in searches through masses of information, including descriptions of the energy performance, energy of production, visual energy, and inherent energy of the materials. These terms describe, in order of appearance, the way in which the material behaves in its use to form environments of comfort; the energy expended in the human involvement in the production; the visual impact on the users; and the capacity of a material to store, or contain energy.
The paradigm of 'the physical existing only as a presentation of its energy' is more clearly described through the example of a single building material.
As such, I have used stone selected from the site. It performs well thermally, keeping places cool in the heat of the day by absorbing heat when located inside, transmitting little heat to the inside when heated externally, and storing heat for later use. It involves the human in little expenditure of energy production and looks beautiful, thus exuding an energy, or sense of beauty.
Stone will be a sink for heat. As it absorbs heat from a room, it cools the room. This heat can then be re-radiated to the space when the space cools below the temperature of the stone. Thus the energy can be absorbed, stored and emitted.
I believe this also occurs with other energies. Energies we know little about, but sense at some level.

Psychic = Energy
Thought waves are energy. They are emitted from us as we think; they have specific qualities, and imbue our environments with their qualities. Stone can absorb these energies, store them and emit them. I suggest that some 'psychic' phenomena can be traced back to the energies emitted from stonewalls, these energies having been previously absorbed.
I suspect that it is the stronger energies, which are better stored, are stored for longer periods, and are better able to be emitted. I also suspect that they are emitted in situations when there is an effective lack of similar energy, therefore providing a 'psychically cool air' in which to emit.
A recent 'energy survey' of St Peter's Cathedral in Adelaide exposed some unusual phenomena. The stonewalls seem to admit, and allow the inflow of, positive energy (geo-magnetic), and reject the inflow of negative energy. The crossing of a number of positive energy bands in the aisle coincides with a 'healing' place.
The energy of beauty is that which we detect at experiential levels, deeper than the five senses with which we more frequently recognize and with which we easily connect. To explain this premise further, I take the relationship between stone and timber and the earth and suggest it is an exquisite relationship, when mixed in balanced proportion, and connected with fine and considered detail. How do we sense, and how do we describe that sense?
I personally physically sense this around the chest area of my body, which suggests that the feeling is in the HEART. We associate feelings of the heart with love. If it feels good, it is in Love. That exquisite sense activates my heart area, almost to the point of pain. I am suggesting that the exquisiteness we see is the presentation of an energy system which we don't see, but which we do feel.

Earth = Energy
The earth supports a range of energies too. These energies have been 'seen' by humans, and in older cults the energies have been used. Spiritual ritual has been heightened by the 'addition' of the energies of the earth, by using stones placed in strategic energy locations in such a way that they amplify and radiate the energies at the location in which they have been placed.
These previous communities used the energies of the earth to endow their temples with 'spirituality', and to imbue their dwellings and public places with comfort and well being. They 'knew' these energies and were clear as to their value or detriment to the environments they were creating.
We have substantially lost those attributes. We might be paying the price for ignoring these energies with higher disturbance in our communities, considerable unrest, violence and general malaise. I believe an understanding or sense of these energies and their use would assist in the production of great living and working environments.
It was through a desire to learn what the 'spirituality of space' was, that led me to begin the basic understanding of 'earth energies'. There has been much written about the 'H' network, Telluric grid. Dr Ernst Hartmann, a German medical practitioner, discovered this network of 'energy' or effusion from the earth in a regular network/grid, immediately after World War Two.
He recognized that the points of crossing of the energy lines co-incided with chronic cancer sufferers. Children with insomnia and bed wetting problems where the bed was discovered on a knot of crossing, no longer suffered when their beds were moved. Apparently, candidates for heart attacks frequently work in places located over crossing points of this energy system.
These geo-magnetic energies are measured. They are found in regular patterns criss-crossing the earth's surface. They have been found to be reduced in intensity, distorted in their directions and shielded by structures which we have erected without heed or understanding of them.
They exist in enhancing and debilitating forms. The normal duality of existence is in evidence here. The enhancing (positive) energies rehabilitate the tired body at night, if the body is located over the band of energy. If we sleep regularly over a band of the debilitating (negative) energy there is sapping of the body's attempted regeneration. The geo-magnetic energies vibrate at various frequencies and at various strengths. Each of these has properties suitable for healing specific areas of the body, and also, I suspect, various areas of the psyche.Ley lines, another energy system connected with the earth and similarly affected by human activity, can also be used and suffered from in similar ways. These energies have different qualities and therefore different effects on the human process. They are seen to be generated by thought processes. The geo-magnetic seems to be associated with the body, and the ley lines with the head. It is said that the leys existed before we walked the earth, and as such, suggests that thought pre-existed humans. These energies are also generated by 'bodies of thought'. Positive or uplifting energy is generated from areas such as learning institutions, and depressing or negative energies from cemeteries. These energies flow through our environments and buildings, influencing us as they go.

Life = Energy
It is interesting to look at the basis of Sthapatya - ved - Vastu Shastra. This Hindu science of establishment does not work from the analysis to solution; it instead works from the basis of all existence. Through meditation, a connection with the source of existence presents the basic pattern of 'life' upon which the layout of towns, regions and buildings is formed.
Although these energies are measurable today, there is a limit to the measurement. Some energies have frequencies so high that the apparatus for measuring is simply not available.

Human = Energy
Human energy is powerful. It seems to be able to over-ride the energies we encounter. I don't say we do this all the time, however it seems that people are able to influence their environment. It seems that each individual is an energy entity, that the physical state is second to the energy state, and that the physical is simply a tangible projection of the energy state. The sick body is a picture with a texture of a sick energy system.
The influences of earth, or 'external' energies on our individual energy systems can influence the well being of our systems, and our systems can influence the 'external' system in which we reside. I suspect that someone with a particularly sick personal energy system could so significantly overpower the pre-existing energy system as to 'permanently' shift that otherwise static system, thereby encouraging the debilitating effects on their own energies. In such a situation it would seem that much more than a relocation of the place of abode would be required for the health of such an individual.
A sick individual who is found to sleep regularly on an energy system which has a debilitating effect may be moved to an area of neutrality, or even a positive energy crossing. They may be so unwell as to affect the new energy system upon which they sleep, and transform it to a negative system as they had previously experienced.
This extreme scenario does not reflect the majority experience. We benefit from the use of 'positive' energy and are detrimentally influenced by 'negative' energy. If we designed and built using the energy behind the image/object, then new and uplifting forms and buildings and environments would emerge. This would allow a creative process, which, it appears, is little used today.

Vastu = Energy
Building designers deal with so many elements in the process of putting together a building that it seems inappropriate to add another set of elements to the palette. Ignoring the impact of the energies I have discussed however, is as negligent as ignoring the impact of the sun! Locating and measuring and plotting and designing for geo-magnetic; ley; Qi; microwave; electro-magnetic energies, the existence and influence of underground water; fault lines . . . the list is probably indefinite and is an enormous addition to the designer's parameters.
There are other methods of problem solving/creative processes than the logical thinking method. The extraordinarily powerful, non-logical intuitive process is, I believe, constantly in contact with the energies I have described, and I suspect much more than I can even imagine. With some training and a good deal of trust we too can be directly in contact with this realm of the energies. We, like those in the Vedic traditions, would be able to 'sense' or 'see' or 'read' the energy systems of the site, and the buildings and the people in a much more substantial way than analysis offers.
We would produce environments, which harmonies with the total environment. Locales, sites, buildings, humans, colors and so on would just 'be'. Without effort, but hitch would suit the occupants and users harmoniously and in a way which uplifts the spirit and encourages fulfillment.
Our world is full of glorious examples of buildings reflecting culture, climates and local materials. Gems of buildings and environments and so on, whether exotic, or simple, bold or demure, they are exquisite. They make one feel wonderful, uplifted. They feel right! They are inviting, and one feels that one doesn't want to leave.
Without this intuitive connection, the creative flow is constrained, our efforts at problem resolving blocked, and the whole process surrounded by frustration. It is my assertion that the intuitive process and creativity are inextricably linked, and that the process needs to be better understood and taught.

Art = Energy
Building designers carry a responsibility beyond compliance with government regulations, the laws of supply and demand, and a need to keep the coffers filled. We have an opportunity to act as healers to our community, Shamans for our people, by producing 'monuments' to upliftment. In days of old, the architect was held in the highest esteem.
The failing image of architects seems to me in direct proportion to the loss of connection with the mystery of the process. We operate from the head, are in direct competition with each other, and egotistically attempt bigger and more spectacular products. We are losing contact with the integrity required to produce buildings/environments, which exude energy, which relate to the human process, and which gives us joy! My guess is that the 'reinstatement' of architects in the community will only come about when we connect with this mystery, and diligently work with the material which emerges.
In conclusion, I can only report that the face of architecture changed for me when I began my scratching of the surface of the issues of energy. The responsibility the architect wields is greater and more mysterious than Western civilisation understands.
Art has always carried a mystique, and architecture has its place in that realm, however, we live and work in our 'pieces of art', and consequently other factors become all controlling. The result is mundane, insensitive and even ugly.
I suggest that if we understood energy as that which pre-dates the physical, and were more trusting of our intuitive processes, allowing them to 'work the architecture', we would provide establishments of beauty and enlivenment.
Exquisite buildings of originality would be the norm. We would deal in all the energies. The issues of conservation, sustainability, 'eco-city' and the like would naturally be a part of this process we would care.