Trent Boathouse, Nottingham · 2024
Most buildings get drawn to a deadline, then quietly stripped back until they're forgettable.
We'd rather do fewer, and do them properly. A good building should feel obvious once it's there, like it couldn't have been any other way.
Before we draw anything, we walk the plot, talk to you, and learn how the place needs to work. The brief usually shifts once we've stood in the space.
Rough sketches and card models first. It's cheaper to throw away a weak idea on paper than halfway through a build.
We stay on through construction and visit site every week, so what gets built is what was drawn. No surprises on handover day.
We keep the studio small on purpose. The people you meet at the first sketch are the same ones on site at the end, and nothing gets lost in a hand-off.
Mara Ellison started DATUM in 2014, after 11 years at larger practices and one too many good ideas dying in a committee. We work across the Midlands and beyond, mostly on houses and workplaces, with the odd public building we couldn't say no to.
We take on a few projects a year. Tell us about yours and we'll let you know honestly if we're the right studio for it.
Start a project →DATUM isn't a real studio. It's a concept built by Midlands Code Lab to show the top end of what we make.
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