It's not who you observe, it's what you observe.

Translating Habraken.

"The goal is not to observe how agents interact, but to understand the structure and behavior of the form that is the cause and the goal of their interactions." Architecture of the 'built environment', according to Habraken, is like a game of chess. In order to explain or understand the 'how and why' of the built environment, we do not refer to the behavior of the players themselves. Instead, in the environmental game, we must watch the game played, observe the live configurations, and deduce the rules. 

I find his point of view on HOW the built environment exists, with its many levels and entities, to be quite entertaining; in a good way. It's one of those situations that until you hear it, you don't think anything of it. But, once you hear it, you think, "That's obvious." I think that's what makes Habraken's take on what makes up the built environment so interesting. For example: the street relating to the building partitions relating to the furniture placement. For all practical purposes, one would not draw a connection between the cubicle layout within an office building or the furniture in a hotel lobby, with the surrounding streets. But when you take into consideration views, daylighting, shading, organizational hierarchy, surrounding buildings, etc, the 'street level' plays a huge part in the arrangement and even the style of the furniture we choose [the 'furniture level']. It makes you wonder what other seemingly obvious, yet un-thought-of relationships can we draw from that may inspire us as architects in the work we do?

The Architecture of Procession: Ductile Space - Brett Dobson, University of Manchester