Architectural Kata 2.0
A one-day workshop where small teams take a vague brief to an architecture they can defend in front of the other teams.
What it is
An architectural kata is practice for architects. Most of us design only a handful of systems from scratch in a whole career, too few to get good at it. A kata compresses the cycle into a day: a short, deliberately incomplete brief, questions to a client played by the trainers, decisions under a time limit, and a defence in front of the other teams, who ask the hard questions.
Architectural Kata 2.0 is Arpeggia Studio’s edition, with AI as a sparring partner. We thought, asked and decided; the AI asked hard questions and organised our notes.
Where and how it went
The workshop ran at the Białystok Science and Technology Park on 17 October 2026. Four teams each got a kata to solve.
Ours, a team of three, got Room with a View: a reservation and management system for high-end resorts, where a guest doesn’t book a room type but a specific room, such as the one with the view. Bookings arrive from the web, a mobile app, the phone and walk-ins; housekeeping has to be steered by priority; an existing reservation system already takes bookings and payments; and peak season is close.
We went through the day in steps:
- Domain. Event Storming on a Miro board, then questions to the client. The AI grilled us on what we had missed, and our answers became a short PRD and a map of the domain.
- Characteristics. We chose three: simplicity, to be ready before the season; fault tolerance, so booking works at the peak; and responsiveness, because a VIP guest doesn’t wait.
- Decisions. Each one became an ADR. Every booking is created only in the new system, and the old one only receives the data, so no room is sold twice. Booking runs as a separate, event-driven part, because it must stay up and answer fast at the peak. Everything else (content, housekeeping, finance, administration) is a modular monolith, cheap and simple for fewer than twenty staff.
- C4 diagrams as code, at the context and container levels.
- The pitch. Ten slides for the business: the promise to the guest, the one decision behind it, what it costs us, and the risks we know. It ended with a request: a pilot in two hotels within six months, then the whole chain at eight.
What I learned
- The presentation is what the business sees. The technical detail is for the team. The business wants to know what is unique and what it gains, so I talk in benefits, not components.
- Start with the money. “Tell me about your business: where do you make money?” is a better first question than anything about the system.
- Time management is crucial. One day wasn’t enough for a comprehensive design. It was for learning the process.
Certificate
Issued by Arpeggia Studio on 17 October 2026.