About ATBE
Better connections between the systems used to plan, design, build, operate, and manage the built environment.
ATBE helps AEC organizations, infrastructure operators, cities, and public agencies understand, select, and improve the operational and technology systems supporting their work.
Why ATBE Exists
Built-environment organizations use technology differently.
Architecture firms, engineering companies, construction organizations, infrastructure operators, cities, and public agencies have operational structures, workflows, data obligations, and technology dependencies that differ significantly from general enterprise environments.
Standard IT approaches, enterprise software frameworks, and generic cloud management tools often fail to account for the project-based delivery structures, specialized software ecosystems, departmental interdependencies, records obligations, procurement constraints, and operational rhythms that define how these organizations actually work.
ATBE was founded on the observation that the gap between how technology is intended to work and how it actually gets used across AEC firms, infrastructure operators, cities, and public agencies is wide — and that closing that gap requires operational understanding, not just technical expertise.
Current Focus
Two connected business areas
Operational & Technology Advisory
Systems and operations assessments, cloud operations, workflow improvement, and technology planning for AEC, infrastructure, and public-sector organizations.
Learn more →Technology Partnerships
Working with selected technology companies to connect product capabilities with AEC firms, infrastructure operators, cities, and public agencies. Current partner: Infriqa.
Learn more →Long-Term Direction
Connected systems across the built-environment lifecycle
The long-term direction for ATBE is better connections between the systems used across planning, design, construction, operations, and city management — not as an abstract goal, but as practical improvements to how information flows, how decisions get made, and how organizations use the technology they already have.
This direction shapes how ATBE approaches advisory work and technology partnerships — treating the lifecycle stages as connected rather than addressing each one in isolation.
Current customer engagements remain focused on practical operational and technology problems that can be clearly defined and responsibly addressed today.
Founder
Founded from direct operational experience
ATBE was founded by Adrian Farhat. His background includes landscape architecture, entrepreneurship, field operations, technology systems, and the built environment.
His work focuses on understanding how technology is used in actual operations — not only how systems are intended to work, but how people actually use them, work around them, and depend on them in project-based and operational environments.
Through direct field experience, project delivery, and continued work across AEC and public-sector technology, ATBE is developing a practical approach to connecting workflows, software, infrastructure, information, and physical operations in the built environment.
Adrian Farhat
Founder, ATBE
Columbus, Ohio
Operating Principles
How ATBE approaches its work
Operations Before Technology
Technology decisions should follow operational understanding — not lead it. Selecting platforms before mapping workflows, responsibilities, and dependencies produces solutions that fit the vendor's model rather than the organization's reality.
Practical Improvement
Not every problem requires a new platform. Many operational improvements come from clearer responsibility, better documentation, process redesign, or configuration — before any new software is involved.
Systems Thinking
Technology problems rarely exist in isolation. A workflow issue may be a data problem. A data problem may be an ownership problem. An ownership problem may be an organizational problem. ATBE traces problems to their source.
Clear Responsibility
Unclear ownership is one of the most common sources of operational friction. Who owns this system, this data, this workflow, this cloud resource? Answering that question clearly is often the beginning of real improvement.
Product Fit Before Product Placement
ATBE does not recommend technology products that do not fit the customer's actual environment. An evaluation that concludes with "not a fit" is as valuable as one that concludes with "strong fit."
Connected Lifecycle
The systems used to plan, design, build, operate, and manage the built environment are connected — not separate. Technology decisions at one stage affect all the others. ATBE's work accounts for that connection.