Architecture whether in connection with construction industry or in connection with other sectors (e.g., computer science, social sciences, etc.) is always conceptual whereas building is something physical.

Maybe the question should about WHEN is architecture. People perceive and construct the dynamic character of space through interaction with space and with each other. Following this perspective, I would suggest that the understanding of building overlaps with architecture when it is interacted with and serves as mediation between humans.

If we leave out the computer "architecture" and similar meanings:

Architecture is not necessarily built (as Aryan already mentioned), and building is not necessarily architecture - it isn´t if it don´t have any cultural (aesthetical, historical, conceptual, social...) value.

Hocine Bougdah

Very good question, the material and the immaterial are inevitably connected while making of Built architecture. Our understanding of buildings has evolved over the last few centuries to incorporate the understanding of human psychology and the the response of human mind to the environment thus created.

There is not much empirical research available on the subject, however this aspect is generally dealt with in the first year of architecture where we inculcate the understanding of the built environment beyond the tactile and visual; the sensory.

Aryan, While I agree, to some extent, with your idea, I still thunk that architecture is not just conceptual. We may in the academic circles use the word frequently with reference to a discipline, or a body of knowledge, but it remains that it is closely related to what we conceive and, build and experience.

There is an old joke: After a windstorm, one guy says to another, "Did your building suffer any damage?" The other fellow says, "my building is fine, but my architecture blew away."

Of course, this refers to the "cake decorator" school of architecture such as the placing of screens on the facades of buildings.

Actually, architecture is a process that, in combination with other processes, produces buildings. Architecture can be informal or formal or anything in between. For example, there is folk architecture that is more or less traditional. At the other extreme, there are deep thinkers cogitating about all sorts of architectural subjects. In between, there are (what I would call) the $#!T kickers who get things done while only contemplating marginal modifications to traditional forms.

Hello Peter, I like the humour laced, very informative and thought provoking contribution. Going back to my original question, I suppose it is my way of saying I get irritated by those who think architecture is merely there to offer a functional role for people wherever they are, hence is no different from any other form of consumption. They even try to tell us that architecture should get on the globalisation bandwagon and stop living in the past (as if knowing how or why things were done in a certain way - be it traditional/vernacular or call it what you will- is living in then past).