How Was That Built?

Roma Agrawal, the award-winning structural engineer who worked on The Shard, presents a book for children exploring famous structures from all over the world and analysing how engineers resist forces such as gravity and tides when building.

Agrawal examines structures like The Brooklyn Bridge, The Katse Dam and The Burj Khalifa among other fascinating, well-known structures, and explains how you build tunnels, domes, on ice, in the sea, and even in outer space! She also profiles some of the engineers that worked on these famous structures, from Emily Warren, who managed the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, to Marc Brunel, who built the first tunnel under the river Thames.

Illustrated in fascinating detail by Katie Hickey, this is a truly brilliant book for any child interested in skyscrapers, big bridges and sports stadiums. There’s a good level of how-to information here as well as a handy glossary and a run-down of future building methods such as biomimicry, robotics, self-heating concrete, virtual reality and 3D printing. Fascinating stuff.