i think it depends. since we're part of this earth and we're natural too, what we create is also natural...if i'm making sense. but i think ever since the industrialization period, we've begun to create unnatural things.

one thing i think is very natural is vernacular architecture. it evolves and a lot of times is molded by the environment and culture...so like how plants and trees evolve to suit their environment, so do cultures and vernacular buildings in order for them to survive.

i think one can better design a building to better connect with its natural surroundings by studying the site and how buildings used to be built there. or check out rick joy, frank lloyd wright, etc.

but i'm only a high school student..so don't mind me too much

i think japanese architecture deals a lot with how structures interact with nature. Even how it is crafted is put into consideration.

you mean cuz they have to resist earthquakes?

A college project I saw for a similar thing here in the UK, the guy cut into the ground much in the same way an axe cuts into a tree trunk, provide a grass roof that comes down to ground at the back, and a glass facade facing towards a river, the result was a building that really didn't impact upon the environment because it was semi submerged. To me that was an ideal example of how to "fit" a building in with a natural setting. Gaudi also manages this at Parc Guell with his brick columns that resemble trees.

I think transparency is the key to successful design of the centres you describe. The centre should act in support of the natural environment and provide additional info that is of interest and use to the client.
By transparency, I mean viewing angles, structure, foot flow, navigation etc.
I think the best example I have seen was the gates to Jurassic Park. In one pair of EXTREMLEY large doors and buzzing high voltage fences you got a sense of foreboding that captured the danger and magnitude of the "exhibits". Film as inspiration for architecture?

It is the thinking of man and nature as two separte things that leads to the creation of object which seem foreign to nature.

Atelier Bow-Wow called theirs Parkitecture, and built over the visitor centre with grass and trees. The interior also reflected some aspects of the landscape architecture and changing colours of the seasons. Further there was no single exit or entrance, and all points of access/egress were equally weighted.



Inn the Park, a restaurant in London's Regents Park is partially grassed over and thus invisible from one side.

MVRDV tried to do a pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery in London, putting a steel frame over the existing gallery and grassing over that, making a second internal space between the gallery and the frame. It was never built

I like Bow-Wow's low visual impact centre, and the way that it can magnify the glory of the outside world, that it is sensitive to season and open to the effects of natural light.

Giving people contact with local natural materials seems important too, that they should be incorporated allowing their (natural) visual complexity to be expressed and thus driving a closer inspection of the materials of the natural world.