South Bank Offices

Tailored Living Solutions had just finished building and fitting out their new South Bank offices, and came to us for a large planting scheme — not for tenants they had, but for tenants they wanted. The planting was there to let the space.

Planting as a letting tool

An empty open-plan floor is hard to sell. It photographs flat, it feels institutional to walk through, and a prospective tenant has to do all the imagining themselves. Planting is the cheapest way to make a floor feel occupied and considered before anybody has moved in.

The brief was also specific about what the space had to demonstrate: distinct areas for working and for resting, in a floor plate with no internal walls. That is a real question for anyone taking space now, and showing the answer is more persuasive than describing it.

Dividing without building

Tall plants used in succession — a run rather than a single specimen — draw the line between work and rest. Used that way, planting reads as a deliberate boundary in a way one plant never does, and it can be moved by whoever takes the floor rather than demolished.

Brown oyster planters carry the larger pieces, bringing texture and warmth into a very modern, very hard-finished space. Smaller plants sit on locker tops, shelving and in the entrance, in refined white and beige textural planters.

Bought, not rented

Tailored Living Solutions own this scheme outright. For a letting job that is usually the right answer — the planting is part of the building's offer to a tenant rather than a service contract that has to be assigned or ended when someone signs.

Where a space has a defined life, or where whoever holds it would rather it were a monthly cost than a purchase, we do that too — see planting for show homes and marketing suites.

Credits

Client: Tailored Living Solutions
Planting: Plant Drop
Plant consultant: Dom Butler