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My name is Slade Sheaffer, and I'm a Master of Architecture student at Arizona State University.  I am also a recent graduate of the University of Wyoming, where I earned my B.S. in Architectural Engineering and minors in Sustainability and International Engineering.

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I am incredibly proud to have spent four years as a member of the University of Wyoming Swimming & Diving Team.  Unlike most athletes on the team, I only spent about seven years as a competitive swimmer.  Due to some unfortunate complications with foot surgeries that I had in the eighth and ninth grades, I gave up basketball and tried swimming instead.  After two years, I became a Wyoming State Champion, and broke two Laramie High School team records.  As a Cowboy swimmer, I was lucky to be a three-time CSCAA Scholar All-American, and I am UW’s fifth-fastest ever 200-freestyler, fourth fastest ever 200-backstroker, and sixth-fastest ever 100-backstroker.  At the 2018 Western Athletic Conference Championships, we won our first conference championship since 1959, and it was an experience I'll never forget.

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​Throughout childhood, I was always captivated by architecture, construction, and engineering of all sorts.  My favorite toys were LEGOs, Lincoln Logs, model trains and RC airplanes.  Art was my strongest subject from elementary school through high school graduation.  After years of hard work, high school sports, and an educational trip to Spain, I graduated with a 4.0 GPA and scores of “5” on the Spanish and Calculus AB AP tests.  I was fortunate to be awarded the Trustees’ Scholarship, a full-ride academic scholarship for in-state students to attend the University of Wyoming.

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Studies of engineering and architecture have further captivated my interest in the built environment.  After a Summer 2017 study abroad with UW faculty, I became convinced that my calling was architecture.  After a brief stay in Tallinn, Estonia, the trip consisted of stops in Barcelona, Paris, and London.  For the curriculum of the two courses (Architectural History and Modern Engineering), we stopped at every significant historical site in each city and visited multiple of the world’s leading architecture and engineering firms.  Our visit to my favorite building, the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, was an experience I’ll never forget.  I revere Gaudí’s masterpiece for its endless religious significance and its revolutionary design, far ahead of its time.  Other highlights included visits to SOM’s London office, where we were given a presentation on the design of Manhattan Loft Gardens, and Buro Happold’s London office, where we were given a presentation on the structural design of Zaha Hadid’s City of Dreams hotel in Macau.  As an NCAA swimmer, a morning swim in the London Aquatics Centre was also a priceless experience.

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Last summer, in 2019, I was invited back on the trip as a teaching assistant.  I thoroughly enjoyed not only reliving the entire trip, but sharing my passion for architecture and various of the sites with new students.

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Perhaps my favorite aspect of these famed European cities is that one can ​simply walk the streets and stumble upon a Richard Rogers building or Gaudí’s Park Güell.  Rogers is perhaps my favorite modern architect, for his transparency and recognition for engineering.  More recently, I’ve grown fond of the works of Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, who describes architecture as “Worldcraft,” and approaches it as a child would approach LEGOs or Minecraft.

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Outside of school and having retired from the pool, I'm an avid outdoorsman.  I was blessed in Wyoming with ample public natural spaces around me, and I'm coming to love Arizona's own unique outdoor spaces.  I've grown to love mountain biking, road biking, hiking, climbing, and mountaineering.  I feel that architecture should be intertwined with nature, and designs should harmonize with it, not destroy it.  For this reason, I hope to someday live and work in a place where an outdoor lifestyle is the norm.  Sustainable architecture has become very important to me, and I hope to eventually become a sustainability-focused architect.  I believe that my impact on the world should be to help shape architecture to be completely sustainable.  My hopes for the future are high, as I strive to build my portfolio work towards a career of impactful architecture.