Around the world, towers are built to provide the most space to work and live. Towers are made to put the greatest number of people on a piece of land. One example, is if you had a tower in a 50 square foot space around 40 people could be put in that space. If there were a number of stories that are 50 square feet on top of each other, another 40 people can be put on each floor. When many stories are put on top of each other there will be more usable space. A tower can have more than one hundred floors.

A good example of a tower is the Petronas Twin Towers. It is the tallest building in the world at 452 meters high. It is 88 stories high and built in an 8-point star shape. Every floor has 1300 to 2043 square meters of usable space. The complex contains a concert hall, a hotel, a petroleum museum, a mosque, a conference center, public parks, shopping plazas and offices. The total area of the Petronas Twin Towers is almost 800, 000 square meters of living, working, and entertainment space.

When a tower is built, the plans will show the support for the structure. The plans for the support of the structure demand thought and must include and take into account the following factors: wind, foundation, shape, weight of the people, weight of the furniture and weight of the tower. There are two types of weight on architectural structures. The weight of the structure itself (foundation, shape, weight of the tower) and the weight that can be added or taken out (weight of people and furniture). This project will concentrate on the weight that can be added and removed from a structure.

Goal

I decided to do this project because I like the way towers are structurally supported. One day I hope to be an architect. The point of this project is to find out what shape, square or octagon, can hold the most weight.

Hypothesis

My hypothesis is that the octagon-shaped tower will be much stronger because it has more sides and that might help the tower be stronger.