Innovo, St James's

Innovo's new headquarters occupies 4,000 square feet across several levels at 63 St James's Street, W1. Whitepaper's CAT B fit-out completed in July 2026: a restrained material palette, bespoke joinery, and one decisive intervention — a new internal staircase cut through the building to connect floors that had previously been separate offices stacked on top of each other.

That staircase changed how the planting had to work.

Planting that is seen from above

Most office schemes are viewed from one side, at eye level, by someone walking past. A connecting staircase means the same plant is seen from below as you climb, from above as you descend, and in profile from the landing. Anything with a thin back or an obvious front gives itself away immediately.

So the pieces near the stair had to read in the round — full to the base, evenly formed, no bare side turned to the wall. That narrows the field considerably, and it is the sort of thing you can only judge by standing in front of the actual plant rather than ordering to a specification.

The lower ground floor

The lower ground had almost no natural daylight, and Whitepaper's answer was a set of ceiling lightboxes that give the impression of consistent daylight from above. It works — the floor feels bright and deliberate rather than basement-like.

It does not, however, work for plants. Lightboxes are designed for how a room feels to a person, not for photosynthesis, and the light they give off is nowhere near the intensity a plant reads as daylight. A specimen that looks perfectly happy in that room on day one will stretch, thin out and drop its lower leaves over a few months.

Which is why the palette leans on the genuinely shade-tolerant end of the range rather than the photogenic end — cast iron plant, ZZ, snake plant, kentia palm. Species that evolved on a forest floor and do not much mind a room without windows. 

How the scheme is built

Statement plants hold the circulation — kentia palms, rubber bushes and a pair of Swiss cheese plants trained up moss poles, all at around two metres so they read properly from the stair rather than disappearing beneath the handrail. Tree philodendrons and umbrella bushes fill the middle of the range.

Clusters do the close work. Groups of ZZ, cast iron plant and snake plant on shelving and low units, with monkey face and devil's ivy trailing where there is height to fall from. Grouped rather than dotted about — three or five together always reads better than one plant per surface.

Trough and terrace planting outside. Olives give the structure and hold their shape through winter; camellias carry the flowering interest; and a Californian lilac, fatsia, pittosporum and rhododendron fill out the middle layer so the troughs are not bare between seasons.

Underplanting across all the exterior troughs — ferns, ivy, vinca and lysimachia covering the soil. It is the part most schemes leave out, and it is the difference between planters that look finished and plants standing in bare compost.

Everything planted and installed on site by our team.

Working to a fit-out programme

Planting goes in last, into a building that other trades are still finishing, on a date that moves. We hold stock until the space is genuinely ready rather than delivering to the original programme and leaving specimens standing in a corridor under dust sheets.

And we still look after it

We maintain the scheme. One of our horticulturists visits every two weeks — watering to the plant rather than to a rota, feeding through the growing season, pruning, cleaning leaves, checking for pests and treating early, and keeping the exterior troughs tidy through the seasons.

That matters most on the lower ground. A shade-tolerant plant in a room without daylight is not a plant that looks after itself; it is a plant that needs someone who knows what slow decline looks like before it becomes obvious to anyone else.

More on how that works on our plant maintenance page.

Credits

Design and fit-out: Whitepaper
Planting: Plant Drop
Plant consultant: Laila Howard