Our habitat is the matrix of our habits, and our habits shape who we are. The built environment is the concretion of human habit, affording certain behaviors while inhibiting others. In this way, our buildings shape who we are and who we might become. Yet, we rarely consider the formative and transformative nature of buildings, or their potential belonging in a larger supporting psychological and physiological fabric. Instead, we tend to consider buildings as inert objects that are completely independent of the humans who inhabit their walls. We need new metaphors and conceptual models that will help us overcome this intellectual and mental limitation. The ecological philosophy of Timothy Morton and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the new anthropology of Tim Ingold provide rich interdisciplinary conceptual tools to help us think beyond the building as an object.