Alessandro I can give you one surprisingly concrete example of this. It dates from about ten years ago when I was doing some research, later published in my book design in mind, on famous architects. In this case Santiago Calatrava. I visited him over several days in his office in Zurich and one day as I went into his room he was standing on tip toe and leaning forward until he started to fall with hands and arms stretched out in front of him. He was designing a diving board for a swimming pool and wanted to feel how the forces were distributed through his body. He told me that he often imagined how the human body would be configured to withstand forces in a structure. If you look in my book you can see examples of him drawing this particularly in the design of his New York cathedral scheme.

do give my regards to Alice and Fernando Pereira.