No one disputes that humans can live and work in slummy conditions, but that doesn't mean we should. We could also raise families in one-room homes with seven ft. ceilings. That would suck though.

A desire to shape our environment to be aesthetically pleasing is not a human defect that needs to be transcended: it's a natural desire that fulfilled improves our lives. (Example: it's been shown that higher ceilings increase creative problem solving: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/519146)

You speak as if you've taken the better side in the case of form vs. function. But just like we're wary of people obsessed with form over function I think we should be wary of praising function and degrading the importance form.