Marc Williams. Architect. Educator. Digitalist
I left school in 1985 at age 17 to focus on becoming an Architect and professional tennis player..
I started working full time in architects offices at age 18 and studied an architecture degree part-time.
In the summer of 1988 at age 20, I lived in New York, USA and played pro level tennis and coached junior tennis pros from Nick Bollettieri's tennis academy.
I spent 22 years working in architects offices in Auckland, New Zealand on more than 100 built projects.
I worked at pattersons.com for 5 years, including these projects: Summer Street, Bethells Beach, Axis, D72, Anvil, Christchurch Botanical Garden Centre.
I worked at hulena.com for 9 years, including these projects: Waiheke House, Pauanui House, Meridian.
In 1992, I was 24 years old when I was the architect on the Knight Kilsser House which won the New Zealand Institute of Architects New Zealand House of the Year award.
In 2005, I retired working in architects offices to pursue my own ambitions.
In 2006, I founded New Zealand Visual Effects, my digital media company, which operated serving international companies until 2011. In 5 years we only worked on international client projects and 1 New Zealand TV commercial. I shut down my company to focus on education.
In 2010, I started Architect School, an online school to inspire and mentor students to become Architects
In 2011, I became the Head of Digital Technology at Alfriston College for 10 years until 2022. I taught more than 3000 students from years 9 to 13 students.
I created digital.school.nz to enable the school students and parents and any other schools worldwide to access my digital curriculum 24/7.
During my time at Alfriston College I created a new school wide digital curriculum which included teaching Computer Science and STEM education using Minecraft.
I created Minecraft.school.nz, a New Zealand and world wide first in using Minecraft to teach Computer Science to secondary school students for approved academic credits.
I was teacher-in-charge of Gallipoli Minecraft. In 2014, Auckland War Memorial Museum commissioned Alfriston College students to re-create the landscape of 1915 Gallipoli in Minecraft for the 100 year anniversary of World War One ANZAC exhibition in 2015. This Gallipoli Minecraft world was shared with every school in New Zealand and is available for worldwide download. aucklandmuseum.com/exhibitions2015/gallipoli-in-minecraft.
I left New Zealand in 2022 and continue to mentor students for free on my Architect School platform.
In 2025, I created Dead Life, based on a URL domain name I've owned since 2015.