MAS Places is an urban and landscape design consultancy, led by Michael A. Stern, and guided by the mission of creating compelling places for people's everyday lives.
Michael has been involved in multiple aspects of place making, city-building, and public landscapes throughout his professional career. The focus of his work has always been to improve the quality of urban environments through the practical application of sound design principles rooted in enduring values of place making — a critical aspect of urbanism. This pursuit has led him through a broad range and scale of projects from urban garden design to planning new edge cities; however the focus has consistently been on maximizing the physical characteristics of a place as the embodiment of a local culture. This approach synthesizes his training as both an anthropologist, and a landscape architect.