The other Make
Guardian Unlimited | Arts features | 'I want this to be the best studio in the world'A feature on Ken Shuttleworth's new office that'll rattle up your old ideals.
Having made his decision and resigned from Foster's, Shuttleworth's vision for the new company came together very easily. Over Christmas 2003, he spent two weeks writing down exactly what he wanted Make to be. In essence, it's a limited company owned by its employees; Shuttleworth holds no shares himself, and there is no hierarchy of job titles: everyone is a "partner". "John Lewis, in a way, is the model for it," he says. "I wanted an office where it was very dynamic, where you share the profits with everybody around, you try and give credit to people who do the work, you try and make sure everybody is happy, you don't shout at anybody and you're nice to everybody. It was a very clear vision."
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As a result, as Make has taken on new business, its staff has swollen, in 15 months, from one to 40 - half of whom have come from Foster's. Soon they will be looking for a bigger office, he says. But not too big. The plan is to keep the headcount at around 60 (Foster's has more than 600), which Shuttleworth reckons is the maximum size of a practice before it succumbs to corporate bureaucracy and departmental bickering.
See their
site.
* Ray, 5/03/2005 02:05:05 PM
