I was thinking recently about home construction - which caused me to read C.F. Innocent's famous book 'The Development of English Building Construction' (which I have placed here for future reference).
It is apparent in the book that Innocent regrets the destruction of ancient homes in England (the book was published in 1916), while recognizing that not everyone sees 'traditional' and 'unarchitectural' as being a good thing.
Here is passage from the book...where it seems that some Darwinian thought is entering into the world of architecture:
William Morris said that the homely old English cottages were models of architecture in their way. They have been called 'unarchitectural' but all's fair that’s fit, and they are valuable as examples of the appropriate use of materials, as illustrations of fitness to site and surroundings, and as specimens of architectural development, for just as the finest man had his origin in a simple cell, so the finest examples of our architecture can be traced back in their origin, step by step, to simple 'unarchitectural' buildings.
I doubt that C.F. Innocent lived in a daub and wattle cottage, but he certainly had an interest in preserving the history of construction.
Here is an index page to various interesting and useful books: