British architect Ken Shuttleworth made waves when he left Foster and Partners, the mastermind behind some of the most iconic buildings in the world, in order to set up his own architecture practice, Make Architects. A little over a decade later, Make has almost 60 buildings and more than 1,300 projects under its belt. Most recently, the firm has teamed up with two former footballers who have become property developers, Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville, to work on a pair of skyscrapers in Manchester; the firm has also taken on its first project in Australia, rejuvenating the city’s historical sandstone buildings and refashioning them into a luxury hotel.

Sustainability is embedded in the way we work. It’s a part of the way we think. We try to preserve as many materials as possible, reduce carbon and greenhouse gases. Most architects are pushing for that. Instead of governments saying, “You have to do this,” the change has actually come from the bottom. In a way, we’re the ones pushing the government. One of our buildings in London is 47 per cent more efficient than the government allows us to do. What’s happening now is that kids are coming through school and they’re really conscious about the environment, while my generation wasn’t.

[The Manchester skyscrapers are] hugely ambitious, complicated, very strong. It’s the clients’ – Gary and Ryan’s – first proper development. Until now, they’ve been playing football, but they’re learning quite quickly. They are very passionate about Manchester. It’s their home, they’ve been brought up there – so for them, giving something back is really important.

We’ve done a lot of projects like the sandstone project [in Sydney], where we take an existing building and rejuvenate it. The two sandstone buildings are very historical and well-loved, so there’s a lot of interest in how we handle them. The key is to come up with a new use, rather than trying to make them do what they used to do, and to give a historical building a new use that actually works for it has always been a challenge.

If you ask any architect what they most want to do, I think you’d get the same answer: most architects want to work on more public projects. More people get to see the building, appreciate it and use it. There’s always that feeling of wanting to do the right thing for the general population. We want to make places for people – not just a space, but a place people feel connected with.

The last 12 years at Make have been a really fantastic journey. I think the success has been due to the ownership structure – it’s employee-owned – which is very different to most architects. All the shares are owned in trust for the benefit of the employees, so everyone feels that it’s their company. It was an experiment, because no one had done it before, and I think it was really successful. Keeping good people has really helped us grow.‭ ‬

By: Leanne Mirandilla