DATUM

DATUM

Architecture for the edge of the map

Every building begins with its ground.

Kalsoy Cliff House62.2931° N 6.7368° W · +212 mseed 1542041351

The idea± 0.00 m

Every building begins with its ground.

We build where building should be impossible: sea cliffs, ice shelves, high deserts and knife-edge ridges. In surveying, the datum is the reference every height is measured from. Each of our projects starts there, with a survey of the ground it will stand on, and everything that follows is measured from it.

  1. 01 Survey

    Read the ground

    Months on site before a line is drawn.

  2. 02 Section

    Cut through it

    The building is designed in section first.

  3. 03 Skin

    Grow the screen

    Each facade is patterned by its own terrain.

  4. 04 Settle

    Touch lightly

    Everything can leave the way it arrived.

The four steps on one building: Kalsoy Cliff House

Work4 sites

Four buildings, four grounds.

A long dark weathered-steel building cantilevered past the edge of a grass-topped sea cliff, the North Atlantic far below in mist.
A long dark weathered-steel building cantilevered past the edge of a grass-topped sea cliff, the North Atlantic far below in mist.

Kalsoy Cliff House

+212 m
Kalsoy, Faroe Islands62.2931° N 6.7368° W

Hotel with 14 rooms, cantilevered from a sea cliff.

A long low research station raised on slim legs above a flat white ice shelf, with a faint horizon and one vehicle trail.
A long low research station raised on slim legs above a flat white ice shelf, with a faint horizon and one vehicle trail.

Halvorsen Station

+31 m
Brunt Ice Shelf, Antarctica75.5811° S 26.2167° W

Research station on hydraulic legs that climb with the snow.

A board-formed concrete guesthouse half sunk into a high-desert ridge beside a single telescope dome, distant snow-capped volcanoes behind.
A board-formed concrete guesthouse half sunk into a high-desert ridge beside a single telescope dome, distant snow-capped volcanoes behind.

Llano Observatory

+5,060 m
Chajnantor Plateau, Chile23.0229° S 67.7553° W

Observatory and guesthouse for twelve astronomers.

A compact angular refuge clad in perforated metal, perched on a knife-edge granite ridge above glaciers, with jagged peaks behind.
A compact angular refuge clad in perforated metal, perched on a knife-edge granite ridge above glaciers, with jagged peaks behind.

Refuge Arête

+3,835 m
Mont Blanc massif, France45.8326° N 6.8652° E

Twenty-bed alpine refuge on a knife-edge ridge.

All work and the site index

Field journallatest 3

Latest from the sites.

  1. Refuge ArêtePerforation pattern frozen at 120 cells, tight on the west edge and open on the lee.
  2. Llano ObservatoryBronze screen panels delivered, 150 cells in 6 crates. Hanging starts when the wind drops below 8 m/s.
  3. Refuge ArêtePlanning consent granted for the 20-bed scheme. Lift window pencilled for late August 2027.
The studio12,045 km apart

Seven people, two rooms.

Datum works from Tórshavn and Santiago, 12,045 km apart, and takes on one ground at a time. The people who survey a site are the ones who see it handed over.

The studioMaterial Library