About
Strata is a 22-person architecture and urban design studio founded in 2011, working from San Francisco, Lisbon and Austin across cultural, civic, residential and landscape typologies.
We believe a building is a record of the site it stands on — its light, its slope, its history — long before it is a record of the architect who drew it.
Site Reading
Before any design work begins, we spend two to four weeks on site — surveying topography, sun paths, prevailing wind, existing vegetation, soil conditions and the informal ways people already move through the land. This becomes a working document the whole team references for the life of the project, not a formality before the "real" design starts.
Concept & Massing
We test three to five distinct massing strategies against the site reading, usually as rough physical models before anything is modeled digitally. The goal at this stage isn't a final form — it's finding which massing logic responds honestly to the constraints we found on site.
Material & Structure
Material selection happens early and drives structural logic, not the other way around. We work closely with structural and MEP engineers from schematic design onward so the building's systems are integrated into the architecture rather than retrofitted into it.
Community & Client Review
For civic and larger residential work, we run structured review sessions with stakeholders at each major milestone. Feedback is logged against the original site reading document, so we can trace every major decision back to a specific constraint or opportunity.
Construction Documents
Our construction documentation is produced in-house through to permit set, with a dedicated technical team that stays engaged through the entire construction administration phase rather than handing off after permitting.
Delivery & Post-Occupancy
We return to every project twelve months after occupancy to measure how the building is actually being used against how it was designed to be used, and publish the findings internally to inform the next project's site reading.
San Francisco
412 Foundry Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94107
18 architects, urban designers & landscape staff
Lisbon
Rua das Janelas Verdes 24, 1200-691 Lisboa, Portugal
6 architects, opened 2019
Austin
1100 East 6th Street, Austin, TX 78702
3 project architects, residential focus