Beaver Homes

I found this article very interesting. In the beginning of the article Rudofsky is introduced along with his thoughts on animal architecture. It states that Rudofsky most envied creatures instincts. He thought that modern men had lost touch with our intuitions and are no longer able to shape a tool or build a house without previous experience, while the animals have an innate sense of construction. While Rudofsky thinks humans have more to learn from animals, Vitruvius thinks we have completely surpassed animal architecture. On one hand I agree with Rudofsky. I think that we have learned a lot if not most things form observing animals, and also the fast that without previous experience or exposure, humans cannot easily make their own building or even tools. So how do animals do it? Is it just instinctual to them? Do they learn through observation? Morgan speculated that "the beaver's ability to adjust its designs to varying circumstances rather than blindly following an unchanging model." This is after Morgan looked at different dams and realized that the beavers began changing their designs to adjust and protect the dam to the changing ways. The beaver’s make their decisions consciously in order to make their housing and do not rely solely on instinct. With this fact you can see a small similarity between beavers and humans; we both make conscience decisions about design and effect when creating an object.