Structural forces, roughly speaking, are compression, tension, and shear. Compression is like stacking bricks. Bricks are very strong in compression, but very

Structural forces, roughly speaking, are compression, tension, and shear. Compression is like stacking bricks. Bricks are very strong in compression, but very weak with tension, which is why we have arches and flying buttresses. Steel is great for both which is why we have skyscrapers. Compression forces are easier to intuit, so for example we tend to think if the human body as a stack, each bone resting on the one below it. But in reality the human body is also tensegretic. All the muscles and tendons and ligaments pull you upright. This is also how we have suspension bridges. A purely tensegretic structure would use no compressive force, you can create a tensegretic dodecahedron with chopsticks and rubber bands, it will have no two chopsticks touching each other, yet it maintains the structure. You can probably find instructions for how to make one in 10 minutes at home and you might achieve a different intuition about how real world structures operate.