Longhamp Roof Garden, Mayfair

Clothing and Leather goods Brand Longchamp wanted to embrace the principals of biophilic design to create an informal meeting space on the vastly underused roof of their boutique in New Bond Street.

The project is the brainchild of Hector Cassegrain, the enigmatic Great Grandson of Jean Cassegrain, the founding father of Longchamp. Longchamp is proud to have been privately owned by the same family since its inception in 1948.

The roof terrace will be used as breakout space to enhance the wellbeing of the Longchamp team and also as a place to entertain influencers and clients. Thus it needs to embrace the brand's uniqueness in terms of understated luxury and original design.

Designer Charles Moore of Moore Outdoors created a layout plan and planting scheme and invited Unique Projects to collaborate on the hard landscaping aspect of the project.

This was a creatively rewarding project to work on for the Unique Projects team, but it was not without its challenges.

First of all, as with any podium garden, loading and weight distribution needed to be top of the list of considerations. The team worked closely with architects to determine the loading capacity of the terrace and took great care to choose appropriately light weight materials.�

Within just one hour and 45 minutes the team had to offload 117 deck boards, 109 inserts, 200 boxes of components, 50 bags of lightweight growing medium and hundreds of plants and carry them across the shop floor and up two flights of stairs to the roof. Not one spec of dust was to be left as evidence and it was imperative that the beautiful merchandise and decor en-route remained unscathed.

Unique Projects skilled landscapers installed the Millboard Duospan subframe and the decking boards around existing features such as the roof lights and fire escape.

All products were supplied by Arbour Landscape Solutions who worked closely with the team to provide logistical solutions.

Planters and an irrigation system were installed so that Charles Moore could attend to the soft landscaping elements of his design. And wow! What a transformation! From a very utilitarian, uninviting bit of roof to a luxurious retreat in the heart of London. Top marks all round!