Architecture and User Interface Design

There are a lot of parallels between Architecture and User Interface Design. Both fields are centered around the user, both are wrongly criticized as being only aesthetic, and both and have to work cooperatively with engineers. The Media Lab is even in MIT's School of Architecture and Planning. One of the obvious ways to tell a user interface is bad is that there are help messages patched directly onto the interface, attempting to explain things to the user because redesigning/rebuilding at the very end would be too difficult. Now, no offense to Frank Gehry (who has actually be rather involved with the Media Lab recently), but isn't MIT's Stata Center an obvious parallel to "patched" UI? At least the lobby follows Jakob Nielsen's final usability heuristic "Help and Documentation." And I suppose this building's inhabitants are a little smarter then your average human.