Humans are not the only beings on the planet who alter the landscape with their activities and not the only ones who construct elaborate structures for use as shelter, work space, storage, and transportation. Social creatures such as ants, bees, and birds are quite skilled at constructing places for shelter and comfort, as well as building roads and bridges for moving themselves and their food supply from place to place. The constructions of humans, however, have taken the molding of natural resources to a level at which the results of their activity have literally transformed the earth and can be seen from space.

"Architecture depends on its time. It is the crystallization of its inner structure, the slow unfolding of its form." -Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

As this quote from Mies points out, constructed artifacts... architecture... is always in a state of change. New structures go up, old structures come down or are burned or buried. Appearance changes when new materials, new technology, new cultural norms, and new functional requirements create a need for new physical forms.