Retail & Hospitality
Mandarin Oriental Mayfair
Our team sourced statement trees that had been grown by one grower for the past 50 years from seed. These majestic Ficus trees adorn the Akira Back restaurant atrium.
Statement trees for the atrium at Akira Back, the restaurant inside the five-star Mandarin Oriental Mayfair. Specified and installed alongside the developer Clivedale, Chef Akira Back and the Mandarin group — on a very short lead time.
Fifty years to grow, a few weeks to find
The brief needed trees at a scale you cannot order. Ficus at three to four metres, with the trunk and the canopy of something that has been growing a long time, for an atrium where they would be read from the staircase and from every table in the room.
Trees like that are not held in stock. They exist because a grower planted them from seed and kept them for fifty years, and there is one grower with these. The work was not choosing them. It was knowing they existed, and getting to them inside the programme.
Seen from every side
An atrium with a staircase through it is the hardest place to put a tree. It is seen from below as you arrive, in profile as you eat, and from above as you climb. Anything with a good face and a thin back gives itself away on the first turn of the stair, so these were chosen in the round rather than for a photograph.
Credits
Client: Mandarin Oriental Mayfair
Restaurant: Akira Back
Developer: Clivedale
Planting: Plant Drop
Plant consultant: Dom Butler
Planning planting into a fit-out? Talk to us early — the light survey is worth more before the ceiling goes in than after. See more projects or email projects@plantdrop.co.uk.
