U.S. Embassy officially on the map

On December 18, Ordnance Survey (OS) was joined by Deputy Chief of Mission, Lew Lukens, from the U.S. Embassy to accurately survey and map the new building.

Mr. Lukens worked with OS Surveyor, Steve Ives, to capture the new Embassy and its surrounding site. Using precision GPS equipment, the surveying duo mapped the state of the art building to centimetre accuracy.
The survey work was then added to Ordnance Survey’s master map database which contains over 500 million geographic features of the nation.

Steve Ives, OS Surveyor, added: “Over the last decade the Nine Elms area has completely transformed and there are some major projects still underway. This is an area of London which has kept me busy and I have been watching the new U.S. Embassy rise from its footings.

“It was great to be joined by DCM Lukens on the site and to officially capture the new building. Mr. Lukens did a fantastic job and certainly has an eye for detail. It is vital that we keep the mapping database updated; today thousands of customers rely on up to date geospatial data to underpin decisions and support their own products and services.”

DCM Lukens said, “Putting the new U.S. Embassy on the map is an exciting step forward as we prepare for the Embassy’s move to Nine Elms. We look forward to welcoming visitors from across the United Kingdom to the new Embassy and to planting strong roots in our new community.”

While this is a very high-profile example, surveying tasks like this form a part of the 20,000 changes a day taking place in our database of Great Britain. The variety of jobs faced by our 250 surveyors and Flying Unit is unending as the country constantly develops.