Ken Shuttleworth

From his final year out at the Leicester School of Architecture to becoming a significant contributor of Foster’s projects, in this episode of the 'Inside the Archive' series, Architect Ken Shuttleworth walks us through his work experience and shares the many lessons learnt during his time with Norman Foster and the team.

Shuttleworth begins with his introduction to the practice and his encounter with Loren Butt. Elaborating on the working culture at the time and his working experience with Norman Foster, Shuttleworth highlights the excitement and challenge of always looking for the next project and what hadn’t been done before, looking for new design ideas and thinking about the future. Ken Shuttleworth recalls the Willis Faber & Dumas Headquarters in Ipswich as his first project ever, as he came along as a junior. With the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank as his first big project, Shuttleworth explains the ambition of the project: having only worked on a three-story building before and attempting a forty-two-story building, the team of twelve people found themselves working together with a hundred and fifty professionals to accomplish the task of completing the project on time and on budget. Working on the Hammersmith Centre, Shuttleworth recalls the drawing boards on the walls and him drawing a very long exploratory cross section drawing on the table. Finally, Shuttleworth recognizes the constant evolution from one project to the next, every project improving what has been done, trying to do a bit more every time and every project following Foster’s lineage of projects and connecting to one another. Ken Shuttleworth concludes on the quality of always looking for the best idea, the best quality and the best scheme, a quality he recognizes in Norman Foster.