Scott Sivan, AIA

In four decades designing, building, and developing projects in the United States, Middle East, and Europe, I’ve learned how the systems we inhabit and create affect the decisions we make; and the value of managing our place in these systems with flexibility and dexterity to optimize any assignment or goal we are tasked with.

I’ve worked in multiple scales and building types:

• Single-family
• Low cost housing
• Institutional
• Offices
• Retail
• Multifamily

I've started and managed companies that developed projects which were market-makers.

These experiences honed my knowledge and craft in a wide range of design, construction, and management projects, combined with the sensitivity required to work with a diverse group of people from all parts of the world.

The baseline of my professional life is a twenty-six-year yoga practice, a lifestyle built on health, discipline, and education, including the study of wisdom traditions, philosophy, psychology, art and architecture.

Recently, in the interest of assisting people through life-changing decisions, I obtained a certificate from the New York Institute of Coaching and am presently enrolled in a Conflict Resolution certificate program at the University of Massachusetts.

The Architecture in the Gap essays are intended to articulate views on the architectural, building and real estate profession and business, as well investigating related issues like art, culture, technological, and human progress.

I start from the perspective of Systems Theory, which holds that the relationships between things and organisms are as valuable to consider as the organisms and things themselves; and that reality is a holistic endeavor regardless of observation.

This is, after all, one of the reasons architecture is so compelling—its holistic nature. It alchemizes inert material and amorphous space into formations of beauty, function, and meaning that sustain and elevate the world and life.

Scott Sivan, AIA — B.Arch. SCI-Arc, 1985 · Licensed, New York State