Our Cities team story
Our Cities team has been working together since 2018.
Both Marc Lane and Sara Stace are architects by training, and bring a deep appreciation and understanding of ‘place’, design and a people-centric approach.
Our first collaboration was developing the NSW Movement and Place framework. Marc was the lead for the Department of Planning, bringing the ‘place’ lense to the framework; while Sara Stace represented Transport for NSW, bringing the ‘movement’ lense, and developed practitioners guides for walking and cycling.
In mid 2021 Sara commenced a Cities team at WSP, one of the world’s largest engineering and advisory firms. Marc joined soon after and together they built a highly successful team working on a range of urban projects around Australia, with happy clients and great results.
They commissioned Vivendi to sub-consult, leveraging AI to deliver key insights and outstanding projects for our clients. Through these projects we continued to refine and develop the AI tools - PAWs, CMAPS and Trellis - that we continue to use today.
In early 2025, we took the next step of combining our Cities team with Vivendi Consulting to create Vivendi Cities. The same great leadership team, with small firm agility.
With a proven track record spanning six years of collaboration, we uniquely combine deep expertise in urban planning, policy, and strategy with advanced AI and spatial data science. This allows us to deliver evidence-based insights and innovative solutions that set us apart—empowering communities to thrive and prosper in places designed for people and embedded with Country.
Between 2018 and 2020 Nick Fletcher and Sara Stace developed a multi-billion dollar Cycling and Micromobility strategic business case for the NSW Government. It was assured by Infrastructure NSW in January 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic.
This laid the foundation for a major program of popup cycleways in response to the pandemic, when Sydney’s cycling network was doubled in just 9 months.