Layered Studio
Evidence for places: spatial and social analysis for local government, cities and development programmes.
We have built a spatial engine that joins open public data with a project's own, and we tailor it to each place and question: a city centre's skyline, a county's housing land, a city's civic life. Each commission ends with a tool the client keeps working with.
Local government · 2026
Subcontractor on a Nottingham City Council study
A live 3D model of the city centre: LiDAR terrain, the height of every building, landmarks included, and protected views.
Sun, shadow and views are analysed for each massing option, so the policy recommendations on where tall buildings belong trace back to evidence a committee can look at.
Strategic planning · 2026
The URBED Trust
A model of the whole county on a 250 m hexagonal grid. Constraints such as green belt, heritage and ecological designations sieve out land; attractors such as jobs, stations and land values rank what is left.
A team can switch each rule on or off, compare scenarios such as new stations, and see the trade-offs in front of them.
Civic Innovation Challenge · 2023
Mayor of London
An experiment for the Mayor of London's Civic Innovation Challenge: could public place data, such as Google Maps reviews, act as a proxy for civic strength across London?
The aim was to complement neighbourhood primary research, not replace it.
Our spatial engine · 2024 to 2026
Layered
Our spatial engine. It puts a project's own data on one map with open public data, such as deprivation, population, flood risk and access to services, so a team can see where needs and evidence concentrate and check them against the project's objectives.
Each urban commission is built on it and tailored to the place and the question.
Contact