INTERVIEW
The following is my translation of a Slovak interview I gave in May 2017 to a local newspaper. I was contacted by a journalist to share a few thoughts about my athletic and academic beginnings, studies, and some projects that I had contributed to up to that point.
From a salmon factory to architectural design
An interview by Ema Stanovská, published on May 3rd, 2017 at www.startitup.sk/erik-fendik-zacinal-v-tovarni-na-lososy-dnes-je-profesionalom-v-architektonickom-dizajne.
Erik Fendík initially strived for a career of a professional footballer (soccer player). As luck would have it, he went to study at an international collegiate institute in Norway and then to focus on architectural design in USA. During his ongoing studies, Erik has contributed to projects around the world and competed in amateur ultramarathons and triathlons.
I chose to study in Norway due to a pragmatic point of view, recognizing that knowledge is forever. At home in Košice, I attended a magnet high school with focus on mathematics. I also went to an evening art school and used to play football. I was in the regional East-Slovak squad but multiple accidents that caused fractures slowed down my athletic progress. Consequently, I could not leave to play abroad when I intended. After a few years of further athletic efforts, I had again a chance to attempt joining a football academy in England or Austria.
At the same time, however, I learned about a selection process for two two-year scholarships at UWC boarding schools. I managed to win one of them, the one to Norway. I chose the certainty of education over the uncertainty of an athletic career, a career which is quite often prematurely terminated by injuries. I went to Norway a month before the actual start in order to attend a language course and then I studied in English from July 2006 to May 2008.
RCNUWC was nowhere near any big Norwegian city and there were no major football teams in local mountains. Therefore, instead of regular football training, I started running marathons and ultramarathons. I also passed our school’s license programs for kayaking, canoeing, mountain biking, and rock climbing. That way, I was able to instruct my international peers and local children in outdoor activities.
We were nearly 200 students from about 90 nationalities and we shared our skills, knowledge, and culture. I liked that during Ramadan, regardless of our respective faiths, we all could voluntarily fast. We celebrated our differences and similarities by cooking and eating together. I must admit that it was quite a challenge for me partly because I had a running season. Running through mountains on an empty stomach and without any water was certainly not easy.
I chose to participate in humanitarian activities such as group lecturing on human rights and Nobel Peace Prize to underclassmen in high schools nearby, and assisting disabled athletes as a Red Cross volunteer during international annual winter games called Ridderrennet. With classmates, we also founded a non-profit organization called DROP (Do Remember Other People). Our initial goal was to raise enough funds to build a school in Ethiopia. Any small "drop" of support helped to create a bigger wave of effort and, eventually, the school was built in 2012. To our pleasant surprise, DROP is still actively led by students in Norway who support educational projects in other countries.
I found a job at a hotel resort in "Nordkapp" (North Cape) after my RCNUWC graduation and month-long traveling through Scandinavia. Nordkapp is the northernmost continental point of Europe and is about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. The job was during a summer and thus during the polar day marked with three months of sun. I gained experience from every sector of the hospitality industry by working in the hotel’s kitchen, restaurant, housekeeping, and reception desk.
When the tourist season ended, I moved back to southern Norway by sailing on a cruise ship. I found a job on an island in a salmon factory where I worked for a few months. Later that year I tapped into my savings and bought a course to become a licensed Canadian ski instructor in the Rocky Mountains. I passed the licensure examination and I stayed in Canada from December 2008 to February 2009.
I had nearly a full gap year before I began my undergraduate studies in February 2009. While traveling and working, yes, I indeed contemplated on continuing as a ski instructor during winters and a kayak instructor during summers instead of enrolling at a university. Of course, I again concluded that the self-pursued education is the most important path to choose. I told myself that if I were to work only athletically, one injury could happen and I would have nothing left. After the experience with manual and athletic work, I decided that I would rather work intellectually and relax with sports.
I was admitted to study a bachelor of liberal arts degree at an undergraduate university in USA in March 2008 already. Unlike in other university settings, students at liberal arts universities initially take several courses across different departments without prior selection of their main focus. They are not admitted to a specific department but to the institution as a whole. During their four-year undergraduate coursework with requirements across several different disciplines, students declare their focus, though not more than two. I had indicated in my application that I had interests in economics and international relations although I knew that I was more drawn to artistic or technical subjects.
In Norway, in addition to IB (International Baccalaureate) in visual arts, I also took IB in economics, physics, and the most advanced mathematics with a university coursework extension. I was therefore considering mathematics as one of my possible career paths as well. Frankly, I had no clue where I would end up eventually but I knew that I enjoyed several subjects and I was glad that I was not bored.
I initially considered universities in Canada, England, or Italy. There though, I would have had to take up big loans and to struggle with work usually outside of a university setting. Contrary to that, I could get to USA through Davis UWC scholarships and direct half-time employment at my university. I chose Middlebury in Vermont because they were somewhat close to my relatives in Canada, and had good reputation, small classes with maximum 20 students per professor, personal approach, a large international community, and even its own ski slope.
I met with admission representatives from several US universities while I was studying in Norway. I liked that I did not have to personally travel to their respective institutions and I was able to submit just electronic applications. [In Slovakia and some other parts of Europe, at that time, the admission process required in-person entry exams at an intended institution.]
New environment and distance from home or relatives were certainly challenging at first. Additionally, Middlebury did not have an industrial design program, a field that I became fond of by working in the hotel industry and the salmon factory. But I always try to flip a card that was dealt to me, and try to find the better perspective. I tend to selectively forget negatives and recall only positives.
Partly due to that kind of positive thinking, I chose to me relatively effortless mathematics with the focus on educational studies, and one more different area. Architectural design was the closest to industrial design I could find, so I tried it. I liked it so much that I did not know if I wanted to continue with architecture even after completing the undergraduate studies, or if I wanted to go for a graduate degree in industrial design since I had not been able to study it in an academic setting yet.
Just like RCNUWC, Middlebury was a boarding school. We were roughly 2500 students in a town of ten thousand. Entirely new environment meant that I found friends in the same situation as me and we could help out each other. I appreciated the most that my classmate from India invited me to his home because his father was an industrial designer and worked in a firm with architects. Thus, I arranged for an internship from December 2010 to February 2011. I tried professional work in both architectural and industrial design simultaneously. It helped me to make my final decision that, indeed, I wanted to focus on architecture.
At the undergraduate university in Vermont, I worked half-time in order to minimize my student loans. I combined a part-time teaching assistantship and grading at the department of mathematics with a part-time media lab tutoring. I worked as a graphic designer, a 3D modeling artist, an editor of videos and photos, and a digital media instructor. That way, I gained experience that is relevant to the professional world. I also peaked into other fields. I collaborated with the department of psychology in building a virtual reality environment for psychological experiments that tested the sense of directions.
For a half of the summer 2012, I managed to win a grant to research social impacts of urban renewal in Japan. I traveled to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka, and I focused on "machizukuri" which stands for Japanese collaborative community development methods. Additionally, I collaborated with the University of Fukuoka on a proposal for a nursery in a struggling industrial city called Tagawa, and with AIJ (Architectural Institute of Japan) to design and propose urban rejuvenation strategies to revive a Tokyo ward with about one million residents.
And I am happy that I could also contribute to the built environment of my institution. Towards the end of my studies, I was one of two selected student representatives collaborating on the design of a new field house. It is the building that records the most visitors per year at Middlebury.
We participated in an international design-build competition organized by the US Department of Energy. During this two-year project called Solar Decathlon, we built and rebuilt our modular house three times: first in Vermont, then in the US capital Washington, DC, and finally back on campus at Middlebury. The house functions now as a dormitory for other generations of students. We joined two longitudinal floor modules including walls in a way that created abundant open interior space and private areas such as two bedrooms, and a living room with a kitchen and a dining nook. We interlocked the two base modules with six gabled roof modules.
The roof modules provided structural stability and helped with the distribution of mechanical systems, such as geothermal heat and energy recovery ventilator. On the roof of our modern wooden house, we strategically spread solar photovoltaic and solar thermal panels. We produced more energy than we consumed during a whole year.
We supported our local industry by designing with thick walls and roof that we filled with cellulose insulation from recycled fiber from newspapers. We chose natural materials such as maple wood and slate tiles as well as a slate countertop, all sourced from our university’s vicinity. In the kitchen, we featured floor-to-ceiling greenhouse windows with integrated shelves in order to provide year-round access to seedlings and herbs. We oriented the house to face south in a way so that the kitchen and its slate provided thermal mass for passive heating during winters. We also placed skylights in the gabled roof. They helped passive ventilation by utilizing the stack effect during summers.
Since I was working in a media lab, I also glanced into the administrative process of technology upgrades at Middlebury. To my surprise, I found out that older computers were only donated or recycled locally in Vermont, in a region where there was already a relative surplus of such devices. With my classmates and friends who also went to the other UWC schools around the world prior coming to Middlebury, we founded a non-profit organization called Computers for Literacy (C4L).
We reached out to our foreign contacts and found suitable partners for pilot projects. We collected a few dozen of such older but functional computers so that we could redistribute them to regions with more need. I sourced and refurbished 65 donated laptop computers. I equipped them with a custom educational Ubuntu operating system that I designed and pieced together from multiple open-source resources.
We set up the computer literacy labs in Afghanistan, Zambia, and Ethiopia after a year of technical work and fundraising for pilot projects. We partnered with organizations that deployed our C4L systems in local schools, orphanages, and foster homes for more than 400 children within the first 2 months. I went to Ethiopia during the second half of the summer 2012, after my research in Japan. I personally delivered C4L laptops to a family foster home and I taught children and staff the basics of computer literacy.
As a part of my graduate architectural studies and assistantship at Virignia Tech, I have worked in a woodshop that serves students of architecture and industrial design as well. I have been a teaching assistant and I have provided technical supervision in the facility. Additionally, I have assisted with furniture prototyping and I have designed and developed wooden toys supporting visual imagination through joinery.
I have lived on-campus in a residential area for about 100 graduate students and I have worked as a residential advisor. I have also assisted the Graduate School with event planning for approximately 7,000 graduate students.
As I have always done while studying, I relax with sports. I have competed in amateur ultramarathon, marathon, triathlon (swimming, cycling, running) races, and I recreationally play football, golf, and ski.
My wife is from Burkina Faso and we have relatives in West Africa. Therefore, whenever I can, I design mostly residential projects set in West Africa.
And after nearly ten years of various projects, this fall I will finally start my architectural master thesis. I am deciding who currently has the most pressing need for a design proposal of a suitable project. Of course, if there is any need of expert advice at home in Slovakia, I will certainly consider working on a design project beneficial for Slovakia.
This summer, I start working with the facilities division of Virginia Tech’s housing and dining services. Chances are that I will continue there in the fall as well, instead of the teaching assistantship in the woodshop. As an associate director’s assistant and an architectural designer, I will be able to contribute to various projects including lounges, classrooms, kitchens, dining and server spaces, offices, piazzas, and if there is time perhaps even our master plan for a new residential area at the university.
I would be happy if my master thesis went well and helped a selected organization to build their project in the near future. After graduating from Virginia Tech in May 2018, my wife and I plan to move and work in Canada. Based on later opportunities, we will see if we remain settled in North America or end up in West Africa or Europe.
An interview by Ema Stanovská, published on May 3rd, 2017 at www.startitup.sk/erik-fendik-zacinal-v-tovarni-na-lososy-dnes-je-profesionalom-v-architektonickom-dizajne.
Erik Fendík initially strived for a career of a professional footballer (soccer player). As luck would have it, he went to study at an international collegiate institute in Norway and then to focus on architectural design in USA. During his ongoing studies, Erik has contributed to projects around the world and competed in amateur ultramarathons and triathlons.
- During your high school studies in Slovakia, you transferred to study at the Red Cross Nordic United World College (RCNUWC) in Norway. Why did you decide to do so?
I chose to study in Norway due to a pragmatic point of view, recognizing that knowledge is forever. At home in Košice, I attended a magnet high school with focus on mathematics. I also went to an evening art school and used to play football. I was in the regional East-Slovak squad but multiple accidents that caused fractures slowed down my athletic progress. Consequently, I could not leave to play abroad when I intended. After a few years of further athletic efforts, I had again a chance to attempt joining a football academy in England or Austria.
At the same time, however, I learned about a selection process for two two-year scholarships at UWC boarding schools. I managed to win one of them, the one to Norway. I chose the certainty of education over the uncertainty of an athletic career, a career which is quite often prematurely terminated by injuries. I went to Norway a month before the actual start in order to attend a language course and then I studied in English from July 2006 to May 2008.
- Although your football career did not work out, you continued with sports. What activities did you do in Norway?
RCNUWC was nowhere near any big Norwegian city and there were no major football teams in local mountains. Therefore, instead of regular football training, I started running marathons and ultramarathons. I also passed our school’s license programs for kayaking, canoeing, mountain biking, and rock climbing. That way, I was able to instruct my international peers and local children in outdoor activities.
We were nearly 200 students from about 90 nationalities and we shared our skills, knowledge, and culture. I liked that during Ramadan, regardless of our respective faiths, we all could voluntarily fast. We celebrated our differences and similarities by cooking and eating together. I must admit that it was quite a challenge for me partly because I had a running season. Running through mountains on an empty stomach and without any water was certainly not easy.
- You also worked on several humanitarian projects during your studies. Which ones specifically?
I chose to participate in humanitarian activities such as group lecturing on human rights and Nobel Peace Prize to underclassmen in high schools nearby, and assisting disabled athletes as a Red Cross volunteer during international annual winter games called Ridderrennet. With classmates, we also founded a non-profit organization called DROP (Do Remember Other People). Our initial goal was to raise enough funds to build a school in Ethiopia. Any small "drop" of support helped to create a bigger wave of effort and, eventually, the school was built in 2012. To our pleasant surprise, DROP is still actively led by students in Norway who support educational projects in other countries.
- After your high school graduation, you stayed in Norway to work. What kind of work did you do?
I found a job at a hotel resort in "Nordkapp" (North Cape) after my RCNUWC graduation and month-long traveling through Scandinavia. Nordkapp is the northernmost continental point of Europe and is about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. The job was during a summer and thus during the polar day marked with three months of sun. I gained experience from every sector of the hospitality industry by working in the hotel’s kitchen, restaurant, housekeeping, and reception desk.
When the tourist season ended, I moved back to southern Norway by sailing on a cruise ship. I found a job on an island in a salmon factory where I worked for a few months. Later that year I tapped into my savings and bought a course to become a licensed Canadian ski instructor in the Rocky Mountains. I passed the licensure examination and I stayed in Canada from December 2008 to February 2009.
- Were you not tempted at that time to give another chance to a sport-related career?
I had nearly a full gap year before I began my undergraduate studies in February 2009. While traveling and working, yes, I indeed contemplated on continuing as a ski instructor during winters and a kayak instructor during summers instead of enrolling at a university. Of course, I again concluded that the self-pursued education is the most important path to choose. I told myself that if I were to work only athletically, one injury could happen and I would have nothing left. After the experience with manual and athletic work, I decided that I would rather work intellectually and relax with sports.
- What did you decide to study at your university and why?
I was admitted to study a bachelor of liberal arts degree at an undergraduate university in USA in March 2008 already. Unlike in other university settings, students at liberal arts universities initially take several courses across different departments without prior selection of their main focus. They are not admitted to a specific department but to the institution as a whole. During their four-year undergraduate coursework with requirements across several different disciplines, students declare their focus, though not more than two. I had indicated in my application that I had interests in economics and international relations although I knew that I was more drawn to artistic or technical subjects.
In Norway, in addition to IB (International Baccalaureate) in visual arts, I also took IB in economics, physics, and the most advanced mathematics with a university coursework extension. I was therefore considering mathematics as one of my possible career paths as well. Frankly, I had no clue where I would end up eventually but I knew that I enjoyed several subjects and I was glad that I was not bored.
- Why did you decide to enroll at Middlebury in Vermont?
I initially considered universities in Canada, England, or Italy. There though, I would have had to take up big loans and to struggle with work usually outside of a university setting. Contrary to that, I could get to USA through Davis UWC scholarships and direct half-time employment at my university. I chose Middlebury in Vermont because they were somewhat close to my relatives in Canada, and had good reputation, small classes with maximum 20 students per professor, personal approach, a large international community, and even its own ski slope.
I met with admission representatives from several US universities while I was studying in Norway. I liked that I did not have to personally travel to their respective institutions and I was able to submit just electronic applications. [In Slovakia and some other parts of Europe, at that time, the admission process required in-person entry exams at an intended institution.]
- How was studying at Middlebury?
New environment and distance from home or relatives were certainly challenging at first. Additionally, Middlebury did not have an industrial design program, a field that I became fond of by working in the hotel industry and the salmon factory. But I always try to flip a card that was dealt to me, and try to find the better perspective. I tend to selectively forget negatives and recall only positives.
Partly due to that kind of positive thinking, I chose to me relatively effortless mathematics with the focus on educational studies, and one more different area. Architectural design was the closest to industrial design I could find, so I tried it. I liked it so much that I did not know if I wanted to continue with architecture even after completing the undergraduate studies, or if I wanted to go for a graduate degree in industrial design since I had not been able to study it in an academic setting yet.
- What made you decide to choose architecture over industrial design?
Just like RCNUWC, Middlebury was a boarding school. We were roughly 2500 students in a town of ten thousand. Entirely new environment meant that I found friends in the same situation as me and we could help out each other. I appreciated the most that my classmate from India invited me to his home because his father was an industrial designer and worked in a firm with architects. Thus, I arranged for an internship from December 2010 to February 2011. I tried professional work in both architectural and industrial design simultaneously. It helped me to make my final decision that, indeed, I wanted to focus on architecture.
- You worked on several projects during your studies. Which ones are you the most proud of?
At the undergraduate university in Vermont, I worked half-time in order to minimize my student loans. I combined a part-time teaching assistantship and grading at the department of mathematics with a part-time media lab tutoring. I worked as a graphic designer, a 3D modeling artist, an editor of videos and photos, and a digital media instructor. That way, I gained experience that is relevant to the professional world. I also peaked into other fields. I collaborated with the department of psychology in building a virtual reality environment for psychological experiments that tested the sense of directions.
For a half of the summer 2012, I managed to win a grant to research social impacts of urban renewal in Japan. I traveled to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Fukuoka, and I focused on "machizukuri" which stands for Japanese collaborative community development methods. Additionally, I collaborated with the University of Fukuoka on a proposal for a nursery in a struggling industrial city called Tagawa, and with AIJ (Architectural Institute of Japan) to design and propose urban rejuvenation strategies to revive a Tokyo ward with about one million residents.
And I am happy that I could also contribute to the built environment of my institution. Towards the end of my studies, I was one of two selected student representatives collaborating on the design of a new field house. It is the building that records the most visitors per year at Middlebury.
- You and your team also designed and built a net-zero home. What were its key features?
We participated in an international design-build competition organized by the US Department of Energy. During this two-year project called Solar Decathlon, we built and rebuilt our modular house three times: first in Vermont, then in the US capital Washington, DC, and finally back on campus at Middlebury. The house functions now as a dormitory for other generations of students. We joined two longitudinal floor modules including walls in a way that created abundant open interior space and private areas such as two bedrooms, and a living room with a kitchen and a dining nook. We interlocked the two base modules with six gabled roof modules.
The roof modules provided structural stability and helped with the distribution of mechanical systems, such as geothermal heat and energy recovery ventilator. On the roof of our modern wooden house, we strategically spread solar photovoltaic and solar thermal panels. We produced more energy than we consumed during a whole year.
We supported our local industry by designing with thick walls and roof that we filled with cellulose insulation from recycled fiber from newspapers. We chose natural materials such as maple wood and slate tiles as well as a slate countertop, all sourced from our university’s vicinity. In the kitchen, we featured floor-to-ceiling greenhouse windows with integrated shelves in order to provide year-round access to seedlings and herbs. We oriented the house to face south in a way so that the kitchen and its slate provided thermal mass for passive heating during winters. We also placed skylights in the gabled roof. They helped passive ventilation by utilizing the stack effect during summers.
- How did you and your friends manage to open computer literacy labs in Afghanistan, Zambia and Ethiopia?
Since I was working in a media lab, I also glanced into the administrative process of technology upgrades at Middlebury. To my surprise, I found out that older computers were only donated or recycled locally in Vermont, in a region where there was already a relative surplus of such devices. With my classmates and friends who also went to the other UWC schools around the world prior coming to Middlebury, we founded a non-profit organization called Computers for Literacy (C4L).
We reached out to our foreign contacts and found suitable partners for pilot projects. We collected a few dozen of such older but functional computers so that we could redistribute them to regions with more need. I sourced and refurbished 65 donated laptop computers. I equipped them with a custom educational Ubuntu operating system that I designed and pieced together from multiple open-source resources.
We set up the computer literacy labs in Afghanistan, Zambia, and Ethiopia after a year of technical work and fundraising for pilot projects. We partnered with organizations that deployed our C4L systems in local schools, orphanages, and foster homes for more than 400 children within the first 2 months. I went to Ethiopia during the second half of the summer 2012, after my research in Japan. I personally delivered C4L laptops to a family foster home and I taught children and staff the basics of computer literacy.
- Currently you continue studying architecture in Virginia. What kind of opportunities do you have at your university?
As a part of my graduate architectural studies and assistantship at Virignia Tech, I have worked in a woodshop that serves students of architecture and industrial design as well. I have been a teaching assistant and I have provided technical supervision in the facility. Additionally, I have assisted with furniture prototyping and I have designed and developed wooden toys supporting visual imagination through joinery.
I have lived on-campus in a residential area for about 100 graduate students and I have worked as a residential advisor. I have also assisted the Graduate School with event planning for approximately 7,000 graduate students.
- Considering everything, do you still have any time left for leisure activities?
As I have always done while studying, I relax with sports. I have competed in amateur ultramarathon, marathon, triathlon (swimming, cycling, running) races, and I recreationally play football, golf, and ski.
- What design projects keep you the busiest, besides your architectural studio?
My wife is from Burkina Faso and we have relatives in West Africa. Therefore, whenever I can, I design mostly residential projects set in West Africa.
And after nearly ten years of various projects, this fall I will finally start my architectural master thesis. I am deciding who currently has the most pressing need for a design proposal of a suitable project. Of course, if there is any need of expert advice at home in Slovakia, I will certainly consider working on a design project beneficial for Slovakia.
- What are your future plans?
This summer, I start working with the facilities division of Virginia Tech’s housing and dining services. Chances are that I will continue there in the fall as well, instead of the teaching assistantship in the woodshop. As an associate director’s assistant and an architectural designer, I will be able to contribute to various projects including lounges, classrooms, kitchens, dining and server spaces, offices, piazzas, and if there is time perhaps even our master plan for a new residential area at the university.
I would be happy if my master thesis went well and helped a selected organization to build their project in the near future. After graduating from Virginia Tech in May 2018, my wife and I plan to move and work in Canada. Based on later opportunities, we will see if we remain settled in North America or end up in West Africa or Europe.