Architect looks east as income from Asia more than trebles

Ken Shuttleworth鈥檚 Make Architects has reported a 12% increase in revenue to 拢14.6m for the past year.

好色先生TV鈥檚 sister title said the firm鈥檚 results for the year ended 31 December 2011 showed fee income from Asia increse from 拢800,000 in 2010 to 拢2.7m last year. Pre-tax profits for the year recovered from just 拢14,000 in 2010 to 拢181,000.

Shuttleworth said London, where Make is carrying out work on 5 Broadgate in the City, was still continuing to operate outside the rest of the UK economy.

鈥淟ondon is in some sort of bubble,鈥 he said.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of commercial and residential work going on.鈥

The firm is also looking at other parts of the world, including South America and India, where it is designing a 50-storey mixed-use tower in Mumbai, its first scheme in that country.

Shuttleworth admitted breaking into South America would not happen overnight.

鈥淲e鈥檝e been down to Brazil like everyone else,鈥 he said.

鈥淏ut getting into a new country tales a long, long time. We鈥檒l get there eventually.鈥

But he said there was no real sign of an upturn in work in the Middle East where Make was hit with a bad debt which saw it rack up a 拢890,000 pre-tax loss in 2009.