'A certain blue of the sea is so blue, that only blood would be more red.'

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1968). 'The intertwining: The chiasm', The continental aesthetics reader, Clive Cazeaux (ed.), cf. Claudel. London: Routledge: 165.

Beginning my education I was brought up in Prague by great Czech tutors: Ján Stempel and Alena Šrámková. Handed over to foreign colleagues I was formed by Sang Lee in Eindhoven to finished under Dorian Wiszniewski in Edinburgh.

Czech experience taught me practicality and minimalism. In the Netherlands they showed me critical evaluation and courage to take risks with unorthodox design methods. Edinburgh ironically offered the taste of continental philosophy - and the relation between architecture and phenomenology.

Subject of my interest in architecture is Haptics - a point of view at perception of the Environment. I've never been satisfied by pure function - the craft is the necessity and architecture starts only after it, transcending it. Later during my studies I took interest in touch. As humans we discover and express many things through touch, touch of our fingers, touch of our eyes. Architecture is a tactile profession - space touches us and we touch objects in the space. Designing space circulation is conducting the touch scheme.

          
          

Nowadays majority of architecture is not designed for touch. Paradoxical­ly, we still touch contemporary architecture, of course, because it has remained solid. But we can seldom touch the dimensions of architecture, as it is rendered flat by its makers, two dimensional, designed for several elaborate viewing points and for audience's certain voluntary self-constraint in perception.

Concept of Haptics connotes the collection of senses, but it reaches far beyond it - unlike buildings of today. Haptics resides in us but it also resides in layers of places, buildings - the Environment. This thesis got inspired by theory of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and designs by Filippo Brunelleschi, Carlo Scarpa and Alvar Aalto. It continued in a project 'Feeling the Table without Touching the Cloth', which renders tectonics of Haptics.

In current commercial projects I am putting my hands on the real bricks - to test the sensuous drama of Haptics. Haptic space resides in architectural detail, context and approach to substance. I would like to refine the reality with my phenomenological attitude and let the reality refine me.

- September 2010 High Commendation in the RIAS Drawing Award (A+DS and RIAS Scottish Student Awards for Architecture 2010)

-> Link to the Results (RIAS web page)
- June 2010 George Simpson Upper School Prize for outstanding achieve- ment (University of Edinburgh, UK)

- 2010 Skupina, Marcela Steinbachová - Praha, CZ (1 month)
- 2009 Tomáš Cendelín - Praha, CZ (2 months)
- 2008 Skupina, Marcela Steinbachová - Praha, CZ (4 months)
- 2007 Plán B, Stano Bachleda - Praha, CZ (1 month)
- 2006 Třiarchitekti, David Mareš - Praha, CZ (3 months)
- 2005/2006 RN Architects, Rudolf Netík - Praha, CZ (4 months)

- 2008 / 2010 Master of Architecture with distinction (MArch, ARB Part 2) - University of Edinburgh, UK
Two year course under supervision of Dorian Wiszniewski, Kevin Adams and Liam Ross.
Visiting critics: P. Eisenman (Yale), C. Davidson (LOG), R. Kirkbride (Parsons), A. Phillips (Goldsmiths), T. Gough (Kingston), C. Pierce (AA, Brighton), A. Melis (Firenze).






-> Link to the Master Degree Diploma image
-> Link to the page on Master Design Thesis

- 2007 / 2008 Master of Architecture - ČVUT Praha, CZ
Withdrawn to attend the course at University of Edinburgh.

- 2007 / 2008 Master of Architecture - TU Eindhoven, NL
A semester Erasmus exchange under supervision of Sang Lee.

- 2004 / 2007 Bachelor of Architecture and Urban Planning (Bc., equivalent of ARB Part 1) - ČVUT Praha, CZ
Three year course under supervision of Ján Stempel, Ondřej Beneš, Alena Šrámková, Pavel Kolíbal and Jan Jehlík.



-> Link to the Bachelor Degree Diploma image
-> Link to the Bachelor Design Thesis

- 2003 / 2004 Bachelor of Applied Science - ZČU Plzeň, CZ
Withdrawn to attend the architecture course at ČVUT Praha.

- 1995 / 2003 Grammar School Luďka Pika Plzeň, CZ
- 1992 / 1995 Primary School with Extended Language Education Plzeň, CZ
- 1990 / 1992 Primary School Plzeň, CZ

- September 2010 Křižovatky architektury - Workshop 'Extension of Old Town Hall in Prague' with Michel Rojkind - Praha, CZ

- August 2010 Florence - Curating The City: Representation and Seriality - Best of Degree Exhibition at Art Festival - Edinburgh, UK

-> Link to YouTube video of the exhibition
- June 2010 Florence - Curating The City: Representation and Seriality - Degree Exhibition at Mathew Gallery - Edinburgh, UK

-> Link to E-architect coverage of the exhibition
-> Link to BD online coverage of the exhibition

- June 2009 Florence - Curating The City - Exhibition - Edinburgh, UK
- November 2007 Exhibition 'Innovative Sheltering' - Eindhoven, NL
- April 2007 Workshop 'Dutch Ladies' - Praha, CZ
- October 2006 Winery Projects Design Studio Exhibition - Budapest, HU
- September 2006 Consensus Design - Workshop by Christ. Day - Praha, CZ
- March 2006 Algorithm Behind Ornament - Workshop - Praha, CZ
- August 2005 Sandstone Sculpture Workshop - Jilemnice, CZ
- March 2005 Free Form Design & Constructability - Workshop - Praha, CZ

- McCord, Sharon (2010). 'A+DS and RIAS Scottish Student Awards for Architecture 2010', RIAS Quarterly Autumn 2010 (Issue 3): 60,64.

- Wiszniewski, Dorian, Hsiao-Wei Lee and Christina Gaiger (2010). Florence - Curating the City, M Arch Programme 2008-2010. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh.

-> Link to download 'Florence - Curating the City' Book
Hard prints can be purchased at Amazon or ordered from: ESALA, University of Edinburgh, Minto House, 20 Chambers Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1JZ, UK.

My name is Marek Sivák and I was born in the Czech Republic, Plzeň, on 29^th September 1983. I have longed to become an architect ever since my early childhood, both because I loved drawing and I had been told architects earn a fortune.

Achieving the goal was not straightforward. First I went through a year of Applied Science before being admitted to Architecture at Czech Technical University as they did not appreciate my unconventional drawing style. Then, after three years of Part 1 and my graduation I did not appreciate inconsistency of the successive Master's and set off to Eindhoven, the Netherlands, for exchange.

There I realized I was much more tempted by experiments and theory-based programmes than by the pure minimalism taught at Czech universities - and I applied to the University of Edinburgh. After two hardest and most fecundating years I finally discovered the scope of my interest in architecture. My approach to designs and concept of Haptics are described in the Manifesto above.

In June 2010 I graduated with distinction. Since then I've been a freelancer working the concept of Haptics to practice. My motto is giving up wrong compromises and enhancing hidden Genius of places and buildings. Ambition is to achieve fit for purpose and lasting designs, which you can touch by your fingers, eyes or ears. Which nourish on the inner energy of their own and their context's.