When you come to understand that all architects are doing is playing with patterns, space, voids, solids, organizational systems, then you can apply that mode of thinking to other disciplines.  When you can see these building blocks, or hidden structures, then reality is very easy to manipulate and shape.  

The tough thing is getting other people to see what you are seeing and then communicating it in a clear way.  Not a lot people care about your vision, so you have to make it relative to them. 

It’s not easy.

If you are interested in learning more about this, then check out Christopher Alexander’s A Pattern Language.

Here’s one of my favorite quotes by Alexander:

In short, no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller patterns which are embedded in it.