What are basics that we should learn to know about civil engineering?

Structural Engineering Basics?

• What are the best websites and books for learning the basics of structural engineering? After becoming increasingly enamored of the works of https://www.google.com/search?site=&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=terunobu+fujimori&oq=terunobu+fujimori&gs_l=img.3...686.4628.0.4868.19.11.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1ac.1.21.img.1teulnh2mco&biw=1276&bih=643&sei=PDnrUZ_CLoW24APx44DwAg I would love to learn more about structural engineering - a lot of his buildings simply don't look possible to me, and I would love to understand how to determine whether a structure like that will stand. What are some of the best websites, books, youtube videos, etc. for learning structural engineering? For what it's worth, I know the basics of wood and metalworking, and am pretty comfortable with the aesthetics and human factors of architecture, but I have no knowledge of the physics or engineering side. Also, I'm not looking to take a class at a local college or anything like that at this stage. Thanks!

• Answer:

  You might want to start with the late http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.E._Gordon, who was one of those British scientists who could really write. His first two books, - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0306812835/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691125481/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ were distilled into - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0716750228/metafilter-20/ref=nosim/ by Scientific American. A few graphs, a few equations, but mostly a lot of text covering a lot of areas of structures and materials.