How to Look at Buildings
Discover the hidden rules behind the spaces you walk through every day. Learn how walls, light, and materials shape how you feel, how structures stay standing, and how to read the story of any street.
Like Duolingo, but for How to Look at Buildings. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
24 levels across 4 sections, about 48 minutes end to end, roughly 10 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Experiencing Space and Facades, How Buildings Stay Up, Designing for Daily Life, and The Meaning Behind the Shapes. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in How to Look at Buildings
- Tall ceilings visually expand space and subconsciously prompt abstract, open-ended thinking
- Lower ceilings create a sense of enclosure and intimacy, which helps people concentrate on specific, detailed work
- Architects vary vertical volume to match the intended psychological state of the room's occupants
- Humans have an instinctive pull toward natural light, known as phototropism in architectural design
- Sunlit areas naturally become social focal points without requiring physical signs or instructions
- Spaces relying solely on artificial light feel secondary to spaces washed in changing daylight
- Passing through a deliberately tight, low-ceilinged threshold makes the subsequent open space register as far grander by contrast
- The contrast of 'compression and expansion' is a classic architectural device used to create emotional release
- Entering directly from a tall space into another tall space dampens the dramatic reveal of volume
- Humans instinctively seek shelter and security with their backs protected by a solid boundary or wall
- Wide-open room centers create exposure and are instinctively avoided unless 'anchored' by a rug, table, or low barrier
- Desire lines—the quickest paths between doors and destinations—naturally dominate how a room is used
- If a primary walking corridor clips a seating area, occupants feel unsettled and subconsciously avoid lingering
- A room's usable functional zones are defined by the clear space left outside circulation routes, not the room's total perimeter
- Public buildings use wide openings, transparent glass, and prominent canopies to draw people in from the street
- Private residences and restricted spaces often use solid doors, recessed alcoves, and visual barriers to deter passersby
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives How to Look at Buildings the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
What kind of task is best suited to a small room with a low ceiling?
Get it right to open this lesson and 23 more in the app.
Where How to Look at Buildings takes you
- 1
Experiencing Space and Facades
- How Rooms Shape How You Feel
- Reading the Face of a Building
- 2
How Buildings Stay Up
- Pushing Down and Pulling Apart
- What Buildings Are Made Of
- 3
Designing for Daily Life
- How Floor Plans Guide Movement
- Working with Sun, Wind, and Weather
- 4
The Meaning Behind the Shapes
- From Thick Walls to Hidden Skeletons
- Fitting into Place and Culture
4 sections · 8 units · 24 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
How to Look at Buildings is taught in the Professor style: clear, structured, thorough. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start How to Look at Buildings today.
Download Tomo, search How to Look at Buildings, and play your first lesson in under a minute.