Blocks of pastel-coloured tiles overlap across the walls and floors of this spa in Switzerland, designed by local studio Bureau to reflect the serenity of “floating naked in a highly salted water pod”.
Bureau aimed to create a space for the Origin in Geneva’s Saint-François neighbourhood that complimented the spa’s floatation therapy offering – where clients unwind in sensory deprivation tanks filled with warm salt water, but devoid of light and sound to create the feeling of floating.
“The spaces in Origin are about the progression towards that state,” Bureau explained.
“When one closes the eyes, the light that was absorbed transforms into colours. Flashes of that connect with undefined sensations and realities perceived in the space but also, most of them, outside of it.”
This visual of flashes of colour behind closed eyes is translated into blocks of baby pink, blue and yellow, which the studio says help to create a transition between the outside world and the ethereal experience of “floating naked in a highly salted water pod”.
To create this sense of progression, Bureau founders Daniel Zamarbide, Carine Pimenta and Galliane Zamarbide divided the 190-square-metre spa into three sections – a reception and waiting area, a relaxation room and a treatment space with three separate tank rooms.
In the reception, waiting and relaxation areas, blocks of the pastel-hued tiles overlap across the walls and floors to create a dream-like space that plays with perspective.
“Curtains, rails, vertical lines, horizontal surfaces, shelves, long chairs, more lines, tile grids as a guiding measure – all of it contributes to a strong subjectivity of perceptive,” the studio explained.
The minimal furniture pieces and design objects that populate the space were chosen to blend in with the abstract interior.
In the relaxation area, loungers made from pastel-coloured steel are divided by sheer white curtains and paired with matching shelving, curtain rails and ceiling lights.
In contrast, the tank rooms are clean white spaces tinged in tranquil blue light, each holding a capsule-shaped sensory deprivation tank at its centre.
Other pastel-hued wellness interiors include a salon in Stockholm by Swedish architecture studio ASKA with an undulating ceiling installation that looks like dripping shampoo.
Photography is by Dylan Perrenoud.
Source: Rooms - dezeen.com
