1. Hayden Waddell
Mrs. Corbett
AP Literature
4 April 2012
Senior Speech
When I was growing up, I was constantly moving to different states. Whenever we
would go through a major city my eyes would grow wider as I saw all the buildings. I remember
one particular night when my dad and I went to Baltimore, and I said to my Dad, “ Dad I love
coming here to just look at all of the buildings”. and my Dad replied, “ Well Hayden if you put
your mind to it your own creation can be with those buildings you love so much”. Since I was
very little I have always been interested in buildings and how they are designed. My compassion
for building has lead to my subject of my senior project paper which is over building codes
for the handicapped. These codes are very prevalent in the making of my project and are very
prevalent in the field of architecture. When deciding what my topic should be the first that came
to my mind was the regulations all buildings had to follow. That subject in itself was way too
broad for myself to do, so I narrowed it to Handicap regulations. My product for my senior
project is that I designed my own skyscraper, when designing this building my research helped
greatly not only on the interior floor plans but also designing the landscape for my building.
Now I am going to tell you about the process I followed in creating my skyscraper.
My Project Facilitator is the architecture teacher here at Creekview, Melanie Salas. When I
was searching for my facilitator, I was looking for someone with plenty of knowledge of not
only architecture itself, but the software I was going to be using to design the building. This
narrowed down my choices to just one, which is my teacher of four years Ms. Salas. Ms. Salas

2. has always been helpful to her seniors over the years and has facilitated many seniors with their
projects, this is how I came about asking her to be my project facilitator. My Project facilitator
is a licensed Architect, she graduated from southern polytechnic university with a bachelor in
architecture and a minor in construction management, and worked for a firm for quite a few
years. She has designed and renovated a plethora of housing units and business units as well.
This experience helped me greatly in getting through the toughest part of the
process, which is the first step, design. When designing my skyscraper the first thing that came
to my mind was “how can I make mine unique or different from others?”. I looked up photos of
many different skyscrapers, like the bank of america building in Atlanta, and the king and queen
buildings in perimeter. These designs gave me ideas for my own design when first designing it.
There is a thing many people don't know when someone like an artist or an architect when they
are creating art, it's constantly evolving. Once I got my idea on paper I put it on a architecture
software called revit. From there I transformed a 2d image from a piece of paper into a 3d image.
While putting into revit I discovered so much I wanted to change about the initial design, like
instead of just being a box with columns holding it up from the bottom I decided to to slants
towards the top of the building. Initially I always wanted to put some type of structure at the top
of the bottom to make it stand out from just other buildings, so I stuck four pillars at the top with
a dome in the middle. These pillars even though look purposeless are not; I used these to put
lights on top of the building so airplanes know that it is there. After I was done designing the
exterior portion of my building I started constructing the 3d model here to show it better for
viewing purposes. The next step in my design was designing the floor for office space, and the
main lobby. These to me were very tricky to put together because even though I have designed
other structures before, I have never designed something on this scale and in this fashion before.

3. So when I designed the Office space floor plan I had to think of handicapable bathrooms, and
and make sure the space was wisely used. The thing most people don't know about most office
space in skyscrapers are the same floor just copied to a different level to save time, because
normally an actual architect were to come in, it would take he or she many months to even a year
and half to design a skyscraper, with other architects and engineers as well. When designing the
lobby I wanted a relaxed yet very professional feel to it. I designed where when you walk in
fountains are around for a relaxed experience and a modern feel to the furniture and the way I
designed the surrounding atmosphere.
While designing the building I had to work around a very busy schedule, not only my
project facilitator but my own. When I realized the task I had to do for my design I asked Ms.
Salas how and when she would meet. Because Ms. Salas has many others to facilitate this year,
she set up a schedule for a workshop to help her students with whom she facilitates. Because of
this I needed to find a way to communicate with my facilitator not only when I’m at school but
when im at home as well. Ms. Salas and myself exchanged emails so I could get in better contact
with her. One really big problem i had was that the only way I could really work on it was at
school because that's the only place I knew whom had the software. I emailed Ms. Salas with
my problem and she sent me a link to download the software for free. This helped so I could get
even more work done and still be getting the feedback i need while designing this project.
That was not the only problem I faced when designing my skyscraper. When first
designing my building, I wanted to walls towards the middle and upper part of the building to be
slanted, never having done slanted walls before it was quite the challenge. It took constant toying
with the software to a point where I almost gave up. Ms. Salas came by and showed me the right
tools in the software to achieve my slanted walls. I basically had to make two different work

4. planes, one with a big rectangle and one with a small one. This allowed for the walls to slant
because the top is smaller than the bottom is. Another challenge I faced while putting together
the 3d model was that the slanted walls were gonna come short if I put them in the wrong area,
and I had to make sure they were at the right angle, at first when I put my model together I just
put it together, and when I realized that some things couldn't fit right because I didn't use the
proper measurements. So when putting it together I used a scale, a protractor, and various other
measurement tools to insure that everything was at its proper angle. The last Problem I had was
again with my model because when putting it together I first used super glue to put it together.
This caused a ton of problems bc not only did it look messy, it also destroyed the print outs and
made the model very unpresentable.I solved this issue by using a form of intense mounting tape
so It doesn't look bad on the front, and putting the actual pieces together I used a spray glue thats
very intense and very appealing to the eye once finished.
In conclusion, I have learned greatly from doing this project not just from the subject
material but about myself. Early on when I first was started the project, a sense of intense
procrastination was sent through me. I kept telling myself “ aww you have plenty of time”;
later on did i realize that we are given so little. I kept putting of the project till finally I hear of
people who are finishing in November December already, that was a wake up call for me. So I
organized times when I would work on my project, whether it be my research paper or the actual
product itself. My constant busy schedule also affected my time I could use on my project and
being able to get in touch with my facilitator. Even though my facilitator was my teacher it was
still hard to get help with the project because of both of our busy schedules. Through the use of
emailing and the use of meetings we set up, we were able to stay in touch and be able to make
this project to its best ability.

5. Through this project, I realized even more than I did before that I wish to study
architecture. My plans after high school is that I joined the united states air force reserves and
will be departing may 29th to go to basic training, from there I will be going to the air force
community college for a semester learning how to work on hydraulic systems on c130’s. Though
doing this I hope to open up more career fields for myself not only in architecture but working
on airplanes. I also intend to attend Southern Poly tech to major in architecture and minor in
computer sciences. Thank you all for your time, are there any questions, thank you have a great
day.