Urban systems studio
Cities, drawn
before they exist.
DATUM plans, surveys and designs the infrastructure a city runs on: transit lines, street grids, flood defences, harbour works. We stay on site until it is built and the street works.
Work
Three projects currently in the set. Each one starts with a survey and ends with a street that works.
Transit
01Harbour Line
A fourteen-kilometre orbital rail and eleven stations, surveyed end to end before a single platform was poured.
Open drawingMasterplan
02Meridian Quarter
Four hundred hectares of post-industrial waterfront returned to the city, phased so the ground stays in use.
Open drawingCoastal
03Tidewater
Flood defence that gives ground on purpose: a sacrificial park, a restored marsh, and a harbour that is allowed to flood.
Open drawingNotation
Four line weights, one grid, and a fixed set of symbols. A drawing someone has never seen should still be readable.
Line weights
- CutExisting structure, edges, quay walls
- NewEverything being built
- SettingLevels, grids, street furniture
- ReferenceDatum, extents, survey control
Scale ladder
1:5000
Regional
1:2000
District
1:1000
Site
1:250
Detail
Symbols
Grid 96 m / Datum +0.000 / Sheet A-201 Rev C
Studio
Twenty-two people, one room, and a standing rule: nobody draws anything they have not stood on.
- Years drawing
- 14
- Cities surveyed
- 9
- Projects delivered
- 38
- Transit designed
- 620 km
Since 2011
Across four countries
Still standing
Route length
What we do
The same six services on every project, drawn by the same people from first survey to handover. No handoff to a delivery team, so nothing gets lost between the drawing and the ground.
- 01Route and corridor survey
- 02Street and block geometry
- 03Flood and coastal defence
- 04Harbour and dock structures
- 05Phasing that keeps ground in use
- 06As-built survey and handover