Founded by Architecture and Planning Professor, Dr. B. H. Schaban-Maurer, we are the primary voice for the Mindful Policy Engagement field covering the professional disciplines of Architecture, Urban Design, Urban Planning and Public Policy. Combining Environmental Form-Making in design with Citizen Engagement practices in policy, to define the Citizen-Centered Design Movement (CCD).

We provide affordable environmentally-integrated user-based Architecture, Urban Design, Planning, and Interior Solutions for Residential, Commercial, Industrial, Recreational, Museum, and Religious Buildings. Our services include Conceptual, Schematic Design, and Design Development Documents with Physical or Computer Models in addition to full consultation and Project coordination for each unique project. Our fees are for the above services only.

We advocate a holistic approach towards the design of living environment through the design of intelligent living spaces that are earth integrated and lyrical expressions of the land from which they are formed. Our past and present projects are available for viewing upon request. We do not provide Construction Documents, we delegate their execution to Architects of Record and Consultants local to your site, as well as, provide referrals and coordinated links to qualified contractors.

For the majority of architects, the issue of user concerns and desires often collide with architects’ own idealized conception of practice, which ultimately results in a pseudo or partial participatory architectural process. Architectural discourse’s aversion to discussions on the influence of political relations on the profession, has kept it blind to sociopolitical and ethical considerations. However, such discussions are needed in order for the profession to transform its participatory processes into relevant and effective practices, especially in matters of policy.
ARK Tectonics makes a unique and original contribution to the field of architecture and urban design, by giving architects and urban designers a credible role in the dialogue and debate on direct individual citizen engagement in the formation of policy, along with other social and applied scientists, guiding proposed architectural and urban design projects in affected neighborhoods.

We are a team of young architects, urban designers, planners, policy scientists and environmental engineers based in the United States and Canada. Our ability to move between the two worlds of experts and users with equal ease, allows both sets of tacit and explicit knowledge and experience to inform each other. In order to develop this local knowledge from within, we situate ourselves into the spatial context, physical and social, of the user; the architect, urban designer or planner, in effect, becomes an embodied citizen practitioner, working on behalf of and as a dweller (citizen practitioner).

Our practice is within the Mindful Policy Engagement field utilizing "the Phronesis-based approach and its life-experience narrative exchange method of communication, a new kind of communication that is founded on everyday language with ordinary citizens for architecture and planning practice. This process of engagement as deliberation, in which socio-political issues are acknowledged and negotiated through special dialogues, would also mean replacing the normative architectural image of design as a problem-solving endeavor with a conception of design as Phronetic Engagement leading to a fully participatory Citizen-Centered Architecture, Planning and Urban Design."

(Schaban-Maurer, 2013 | Rise of the Citizen Practitioner)

Partners | Affiliates

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Our three partner institutions are:       
The Urban Science Institute (urban design, public policy and phronetic engagement research)USI
3MA Networks (Geographic Information Systems strategy and management consultancy)3MA 
The Earthnomad Foundation (Public Policy, Urban Policy, Direct Citizen Engagement) Global Expertise | Local Strategy ENF