Frame Structure Pression
Casual
Only for iPhone
Free · Designed for iPhone. Not verified for macOS.
iPhone
The top of a loaded beam is always in compression. The bottom is always in tension. Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. Frame Structure Pression shows you.
Frame Structure Pression is a structural intuition game for architecture students who can draw buildings but cannot yet see the forces inside them.
Every building is a system for transferring loads to the ground. Every beam, column, arch, cable, and truss exists to carry a force from where it is applied to where the earth can resist it. The route that force takes is the load path. Understanding load paths is the most fundamental structural skill in architecture. It is also the skill that is most poorly taught, because it requires something textbooks cannot provide: seeing force move through a structure in real time.
The game shows you a structural system as a clean line drawing — a beam, an arch, a truss, a dome — with a load applied at a specific point. Your task is to trace where that force goes, tapping each member it passes through in sequence. Tap correctly and the member lights up: deep red for compression, electric blue for tension, the line weight thickening in proportion to the force magnitude. Tap incorrectly and a single sentence explains exactly why that force cannot travel that way.
Twenty levels move through the complete structural vocabulary. Simple beams and cantilevers establish the principle that compression and tension always live on opposite faces of a bending member — and that a cantilever reverses them. Arches show how curving a structure converts bending into pure compression, and why their abutments must resist outward thrust as well as vertical load. Truss levels teach the pattern of tension and compression members for different geometries. Dome levels show the hoop tension that develops at a dome's base — the force that cracked the Pantheon and required iron chains at the base of every masonry dome ever built.
Five levels show real structures: the cantilever floor slabs at Fallingwater — and the misplaced steel bars that caused decades of unintended deflection. The Eiffel Tower, whose shape is a direct expression of the overturning moment from wind. Maillart's arch bridge — the thinnest concrete arch ever built, made possible by understanding exactly where forces travel and removing every gram of material from every zone where they do not.
The game ends with two design decision levels. A museum needs a column-free hall fifty metres wide. A house needs fully glazed walls on a seismic site. The player chooses the structural system. All valid options are shown, with their load paths and their architectural trade-offs. There is no single correct answer. That is the point.
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The developer, Jeff Macco, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy .
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Information
- Seller
- Jeff Macco
- Size
- 748.5 KB
- Category
- Casual
- Compatibility
Requires iOS 18.0 or later.
- iPhone
Requires iOS 18.0 or later. - Mac
Requires macOS 15.0 or later and a Mac with Apple M1 chip or later. - Apple Vision
Requires visionOS 2.0 or later.
- iPhone
- Languages
- English
- Age Rating
16+
- 16+
- Copyright
- © Jeff, 2026