Michael
Kats

Architecture as a process of observation, investigation, and translation.

PRACTICE
Stratamaki Studio

WORKING BETWEEN
Research and making

OPEN TO
Practice, teaching

Statement

I approach architecture as a process of observation, investigation, and translation.

My work explores the relationships between people, place, climate, material, and the systems that shape how we inhabit the world. I am particularly interested in the accumulated knowledge embedded within vernacular buildings and smaller settlements—places where generations of adaptation have produced resilient relationships between environment, culture, and construction. Rather than reproducing these traditions, I seek to understand the principles behind them and translate that knowledge into new architectural possibilities for changing climates and uncertain futures.

My work moves between research and making, from landscapes and environmental systems to material studies, drawings, buildings, and speculative futures. I am interested in architecture not simply as an object, but as a means of uncovering relationships that already exist within a place and recombining them into something new. Through observation, collection, and translation, I look toward the small and the overlooked as sources of intelligence for imagining architecture’s future.