As a kid, I plagued my parents with relentless questions about the inner-workings of buildings. They perceived my curiosity as a good sign, but my questions got a bit overwhelming. They did their best to answer, but as neither of them is an architect or engineer, the depth of their explanations was relatively limited. My questions were answered one day when my parents took a quick trip to the local bookstore and put David Macaulay’s The New Way Things Work in my hands. It was a great day at home. My parents enjoyed a moment’s peace as I sat quietly for hours, engrossed in the book.
That was a time before iPhones and iPads. Getting my questions via a quick Google search was out of the question. We hadn’t even gotten dial-up at home yet. The speed of gaining access to knowledge has gotten a substantial upgrade since then: With smartphones and Wi-Fi, today’s kids have an unprecedented amount of knowledge, inspiration and discovery at their fingertips. Engrossing and informative as Macaulay’s book was at the time, I would have been delighted to be handed an iPhone with the Skyscrapers app on it.
Image via Fast Company
Skyscrapers is a new app by Tinybop that allows users to explore how tall buildings look, how they are built and how people, water and electricity move in them. Users learn about the ins and outs of the world’s tallest towers as they go up and down, through every floor and underground. They can spark a blackout, fix a pipe or clog the toilets, learning about everything from aesthetics to nitty-gritty practical matters like plumbing. In a whimsical introduction to understanding the engineering behind these complex systems, users can see how a building’s engineering holds up when dinosaurs invade, lightning strikes or the earth quakes.
Skyscrapers features vibrant colored illustrations by Berlin-based artist Mike Ellis and is part of a suite of apps called The Explorer’s Library, a series of interactive “playscapes” for children aged four and up that spark discovery and a deeper understanding of the world, with colorful apps such as the Human Body, Homes and Simple Machines.
The app comes with a free PDF, The Skyscrapers Handbook, that includes fun facts and discussion questions for parents and teachers to supplement their kids’ (or, let’s be honest, their own) educations. Upon reading it, it came as no surprise to me that David Macaulay’sBuilding Big and Underground were included in the references. Users “create” their own skyscrapers by adding floors and choosing the color of the façade. With little text, the app invites its users to explore six different aspects of skyscrapers: Form, Skyline, Façade & Top, Structure, Water and Electricity.
Users are introduced to all the parts of a skyscraper in the Form section. They learn that there’s more to a skyscraper than what you can see above ground. Users discover mechanical floors filled with all the equipment needed to operate and maintain the building’s plumbing, electricity, heating, cooling and communications equipment. When exploring the Skyline feature, users can drag buildings around to arrange their skyline. The Façade and Top feature teaches users about the “skins” of buildings. Once they understand that curtain walls are not structural, they can swipe to change the wall, top of building or the top of the skyscraper.
Image via Fast Company
Some of the best parts of the app are its in-depth explorations of structure and engineering. Without being overly confusing or pedantic, users learn about steel frames and foundations and are able to test the strength and resilience of their building depending on variables such as soil types, loads and building height. Users quickly learn that by necessity, the taller a skyscraper is, the deeper the foundation must go into the ground. Users can also investigate how water travels through a skyscraper with the help of pumps and tanks, exploring the flow of water through water pipes and even doing some troubleshooting when there is a breakage or clog within them.
Image via Fast Company
Electricity is the final component of the peeled-apart skyscraper exploration. Users follow the path of electricity as it travels into the building voltage–regulating transformers, into a switchgear and into the different mechanical floors of the building, complete with safety features such as breaker boxes. Though it might seem obvious to us, the app also teaches common-sense sustainability. Electricity costs money. The more electricity a floor, office or building takes and uses, the higher the electricity bill.
It’s so easy to look on in a mix of confusion and horror as young children masterfully use iPhones for hours on end. But if all of the apps that they spent their time with were as carefully designed and educational as Skyscrapers and the rest of the suite of Tinybop’s Explorers Library, perhaps we’d be encouraging them to play even more.
Check out a preview of the app in action below. (The music is really epic).
All images are via Tinybopunless stated otherwise.
