Unto This Last

The Workshop in the City. A place where everything sold has been manufactured on site. Our vision is to create a place where efficiency meets elegance. We have designed a new type of retail space around the idea of the open workshop. We have proven that purposeful design, logistics and technology enable a micro-manufacturing unit to produce at competitive costs, in the middle of the city. We believe that efficiency is not simply a matter of scale. We know it comes from focus, good methods and software

Unto this Last was launched in 2001, and CNC (computer numerical controlled) routing is not a new technology, but perhaps the wider interest in micro-manufacturing reflects a confluence of trends: revisiting making things in Britain; a focus on provenance and who is making things; a concern for materials and how things are made. Our conversation began with Olivier’s definition of the environment. So often we are bombarded with global definitions, but at Unto this Last, the environment is the workshop, the immediate physical surroundings and conditions in which he and his team work. Every aspect of design, material choice, production, and delivery is examined through this lens. Perhaps because the enterprise is so closely connected to its environment, there is an imperative to tread lightly. Unto this Last does more than make joyful products, as they hope their « workshop contributes positively to the life of the city ». It is an enterprise with a tangible and transparent integrity.