Mark Adams

I am a zoologist who is director of the British company, Vitsœ, that has made the furniture of the German industrial designer, Dieter Rams, since 1959. I succeeded the founder, Niels Vitsœ, and relocated the company and its production from Germany to the UK in 1995. Today Vitsœ exports 75% of its sales to 90 countries. I led the team that designed and built our (quietly acclaimed) naturally-lit and -ventilated timber production building that opened in 2017 in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. Vitsœ was a founder member of the Centre for Industrial Sustainability at the University of Cambridge in 2011. I have lectured annually at Cambridge for almost 20 years. Vitsœ is now in the process of transitioning to a stewardship model of dual ownership.