You.
Who wants to create a stage for your life - not shoehorn your life into someone else’s generic box. You want a future-proof house that's got your back as you age... and your knees, and your eyes, and your grip. You want function without compromising beauty.
Homeowner
You want a stunning building that reflects your values and unique vision, and you want everyone your project services to benefit from your efforts. You require cost control and liability protection. You know that changing the world requires big visions as well as attention to detail. And you want to create a legacy you can be proud of.
Developer
With a problem building: complex, non-code-compliant, and not reaching its potential in a myriad of ways. You want to reimagine it and give it another shot at life.
Building Owner
Who knows there’s more about inclusion and diversity than is in the ADA. You need a partner who has the professional design experience to understand your vision and the lived experience to amplify it.
Architect
Who wants to bring the equity and ideals you work hard for into your workplace to build a stronger, more diverse team.
Inclusion Officer
Us.
We are creative experts with and without disability lived experience. After 30 years of doing important work in architecture and urban planning through Mikiten Architecture, we realized that our greatest impact was in Universal Design.
Multidisciplinary
We recognized that after 30 years of the ADA, people still struggle to unite accessibility and great design. The typical components of accessibility - ramps, grab bars, and other elements - often don't work well and don't look good when they're grafted on as afterthoughts.
Critical
In our own projects for years, and realized it was time to create a new sister firm that focuses explicitly on it, and also advocates energetically to help the profession change the way we all look at accessibility. It’s time to move beyond "ADA compliance" and create beautifully inclusive buildings and spaces that work for everyone without compromise.
Experienced
With our network of colleagues and lived experience experts across the country to bring fresh viewpoints and pioneering ideas to every project, whether it's a single family home in Martha's Vineyard, a tech office space in Silicon Valley, or a transit center in London.
Connected
How Lived Experience Led Us Here...
Erick Mikiten’s journey with disability, with designing the world around him, with collaborating with world-class architects, and with teaching, revealed a path for resolving his struggle between artistic expression and technical accessibility insights. And that path offers a way for the design professions to come to terms with their own struggle between creativity and the building code.
Erick's weak bone condition resulted in many 6-week periods in a traction bed, drawing everything around him and painting imaginary places. From one spot in one room he soaked in the slow movement of the sun and absorbed the subtleties in the changing of the seasons.
His artist mother took architecture classes when he was in middle school and he saw the excitement of making artistic places that connected deeply to people, took a drafting class, and started taking drafting jobs at age 15.