Arket King's Road

Specification and installation of statement planting for Arket's first King's Road store — part of the H&M group, in a historic Chelsea building brought up to date. Delivered with the fit-out contractor and our partner Powell's.

Two briefs at once

A global brand arrives with a look that is already settled — a way of doing material, colour and restraint that is consistent from Stockholm to Seoul. But there is rarely a planting specification, because planting is the one part of a store that cannot be shipped from a central warehouse. It has to be found locally, every time, and it has to look like it belongs to the brand anyway.

So the job was to match something that had never been written down: plants and planters that read as Arket to anyone who has been in an Arket, while also suiting a particular historic building on a particular street in Chelsea.

An opening date that does not move

Retail fit-outs end on a fixed day. The store opens whether or not the last trade finished, and planting is almost always the last trade — going into a space other people are still working in, on a date that has been moving all month.

We held the specimens until the site was genuinely ready and installed to the programme, so the planting was in and finished for the opening rather than arriving into a building still under dust sheets.

Credits

Client: Arket
Fit-out: Powell's
Planting: Plant Drop

Plant consultant: Dom Butler