Sivak+Partners is an interior design studio based in Odessa, Ukraine, run by founder Dmitry Sivak with Alexey Gulesha and Maksym Iuriichuk. The studio combines business, art and comfort. They love to design and implement bold projects, from high-rise buildings, thousands of square meters of offices, to cute cafes with delicious cookies. Sivak+Partners believes that design knows no boundaries, and their goal is to build projects on several continents around the globe.

Yinji：What was the opportunity for the establishment of Sivak+Partners?
Alexey Gulesha：I think it all started with a friendship. We studied architecture in the same Univercity and more or less knew each other before we even started our practice. Each of us went through a different architectural and design experience before we got together.We are working as a team already like 5,6years. We grew, developed our style, skills, philosophy and vision. 

Yinji：What is the design philosophy of Sivak+Partners?
Alexey Gulesha：First of all the motivational power for us is a passion for innovation and for search of a new ways of living, of a new beauty, new meanings, new combinations and new emotions for the spaces we live and work in. We try to keep the difference between us. I mean everyone has his own style which is sometimes not similar to the other’s and we consider this difference as a perfect point of growth. When we share our thoughts and vision we come up with a new ideas at the point of intersection of our tastes.

Yinji：Which design masters influenced your work? What enlightenment did they bring you?
Alexey Gulesha：I really like the philosophy of the 1980s . I have an architectural background so for me the interior design is the process of a deep understanding the problems of a space and trying to solve them in a most uncommon but simple way. So the main influencers for me were the architects from the past: Richard Neutra, John Lautner, Louis Kahn, Tadao Ando, Ricardo Bofill. I’m also very inspired by the work of Peter Zumthor and David Chipperfield. My work is usually related to the inside rather than outside, so I follow the creativity of many modern interior and furniture designers like Vincent van Duysen, Pierre Yovanovitch, Piero Lissoni, Muller van Severen, Michael Anastasiades, Bouroullec brothers and more.

Yinji：What do you think of "minimalism"?
Alexey Gulesha：I think it is great that we start to put a thought on our consuming. I don’t think that minimalism could fill the needs of a modern society but I consider it as an intermediate stage before something new. The minimalism itself is just a try to not collect useless stuff. The second thought might be about understanding what is really useful for your body and mind, try to understand yourself in the empty space and only after that filling it up with a good things on the right places.

Yinji：When you start a new project, how will you develop it? And get inspired?
Alexey Gulesha：I try to collect ideas in my mind every day, so its just about the time when they will appear in my projects. The main task for me is to understand what are the problems that I need to solve as an architect. Then I search for the problems that I can solve as a designer and as an artist. And the last stage is to understand what are the psychological needs of my client. All of these questions need to be answered by me through the process of project development.

Yinji：How would you solve "formal innovation" and "functionality" in your design?
Alexey Gulesha：Honestly, I am not sure I get the question right. I think that functionality is a little bit overrated. We stuck in it for the decades and now we have these white boxes all over the world which are all the same. I think we will have an AR in future that would solve the functionality problems immediately after you download a floorplan to its server. There is nothing unique in the design process if there is no art in it. If there’s no experiments in it. Sometimes even a mistake can add a specific emotion when you live in it.So I’m not afraid to experiment with the rules, sacrifice function a little bit for a chance to get something unique and unforgettable as a result. 

Yinji：How do you view the relationship between material and space? What does tactile contrast mean?
Alexey Gulesha：We live in a world where we see too much every day. We start our day from checking the feed on tik-tok and Instagram, we are already fed up with the visual content so I decided to focus on the design, that will enchance other of our senses. For the moment I search for a ways to speak to tactile senses because its all about the materials, sometimes about the temperature and it is not so difficult to reach a new results. People usually touch plastic nowadays. Sometimes wooden panels, cheap ceramics, metal and fabrics. So if you bring a real stone or a piece of dry clay into the interior it will be something new for most of us to touch. The diversity of finishes and structures creates a tactile story in the space and I try to be as good as possible in such kind of storytelling.

Yinji：Sivak+Partners' future plans?
Alexey Gulesha：We want to enlarge our team and to open our doors for a new people, to teach them our design as we see it. We also want to cover more countries and to be able to build everywhere so probably the next steps for us would be opening a new spaces and offices. We have a lot ideas of how to grow and how to be more loud in this world of design marketing and advertising, but we want to focus on a quality and on improving the philosophy rather than on marketing and earning.