Should the facade be a Reflection or a transparent layer ?

                                                 Illusory brick house in Chicago                                                           

Reading and learning about facades was fun and honestly it also was critical in helping me understand the big gap that exists between a building's facade and its interior. From a designer standpoint, I would say that building something that is aesthetically pleasing is important but is it valuable at all? 

Looking at the work of Renzo Piano by example and comparing it to the work of Louis Kahn or Peter Zumthor, shows that manipulating a building's facade can be a work of art from the inside to the outside, and can such creates a language that is transferred not just through user experience but also by the choreography of natural elements such as light, air, or water. 

My perspective leads me to believe that the concept of facade in general should be approached from a theoretical philosophy that make it more malleable rather than static. It is easy to use new technologies to build new facades but I would be much more interested and curious about the building itself if the facade was designed in a way that it becomes part of the interior. Louis Kahn use of light in the Kimbell art Museum by example differ a lot from Renzo Piano addition to the Kimbell. The language should always be communicated to make a good facade, and to me, it is hard to make a building's facade communicate the form and language of its interior spaces without using opaque materials like glass or plastic. 

However, with building technologies evolving and more discoveries getting made into material research and innovation, it is important to acknowledge that there are possibilities that come into play. These possibilities can oftentimes become catalysts for designers and they can also create more problems than they solve considering the built environment and its vulnerability to continuous changes in nature, climate, human migration, or again political landscapes such as disaster prone regions. Nevertheless, the focus on the material alone to make a facade bring up two important questions. 

1- should the architects just put their focus on materials to help them build a facade?

2- should the architects use their knowledge and understanding of the complexity of layers, to create something that is beautiful, intentional, purposeful, and sustainable?

Both questions are valid in the sense that they can be explored simultaneously, which is what I would do. But looking at the presentations and the different architect's work, it seems obvious that it is a hard process to do and implement, and oftentimes, many facades end up being a reflection rather than a transparent layer that convey a clear dialogue between the interior and the exterior of the building. 

In that regard, I want to ask, what would you rather do if you were short on budget by example but wanted the facade to transmit a clear language from inside to outside? Would you just go with opaque materials like glass? or would you dig deeper and try to use form and intentions as a way to reimagine the facade? 

Note: Reflection here is a theoretical word and as nothing to do with shiny materials etc... Transparent is a theoretical word as well that has nothing to do with glass or opaque layers, but more to do with language transmission and subtle design approaches.