Setting the line — ±0.00
03The method
One studio, first line to final handover.
We do not design a building and hand it to someone else to build. Every DATUM commission is held by one studio through four movements — and the datum line set in the first is the line the last is measured against.
01First lineDATUM ±0.008–16 weeks
We find the datum before we draw
We begin on the site, not on the page. Before a single line is drawn we establish the one fixed reference the whole project will hold to — a level, an axis, a first principle taken from the ground, the light, or the brief. Everything that follows is measured from it.
Site survey & datumBrief interrogationFeasibility & massingCost line
02Developed designDATUM + DETAIL16–28 weeks
We draw only what we can build
Design and construction are worked out together, in the same room. Every detail is resolved to the millimetre and tested against how it will actually be made — because the studio drawing it is the studio that will set it. Nothing enters the drawings that we have not already built in our heads.
Developed designMaterial prototypesFull detail setTolerances fixed
03BuildDATUM + STRUCTURE12–30 months
The hands that drew it set it
We are the contractor. We hold the trades, the programme and the tolerance ourselves, so the quality decided in design survives contact with the site. Sample walls are built and rejected. First pours are watched. The line set in movement one is protected in the concrete.
Self-delivered constructionSample approvalSite tolerance controlSnag-free completion
04HandoverDATUM + PERMANENTOngoing
We leave it standing, and stay
We hand over a building measured against the exact line it began from, with the drawings, the samples and the record of how it was made. Then we stay reachable — because a studio that builds for two centuries should be around for at least the first repair.
As-built recordMaterial archiveMaintenance datumAftercare
Commissions
Begin at the line.
Start an enquiry
[email protected]
+45 32 96 00 13 — Copenhagen
A handful of commissions a year.