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Swedish architecture studio ASKA has refurbished haircare brand Maria Nila’s headquarters and salon in Stockholm, creating an undulating ceiling installation that looks like dripping shampoo. More
Canadian interiors office Studio Roslyn has created a Vancouver hair salon designed to invoke the mood of 1980s Miami, complete with candy-coloured furniture and nostalgic art deco features. More
Turkish artist Eva Karabudak designed a soothing and welcoming interior for her tattoo parlour, Atelier Eva, in New York’s Williamsburg neighbourhood. More
Beijing-based IS Architecture and Design has created a hair salon and cosmetic spa in Beijing with avocado-green interiors informed by space-age design. More
A palette of plaster, marble, terrazzo and stainless steel was chosen to create interiors that customers want to “reach out and touch” in this Dublin skin clinic by Kingston Lafferty Design.The local firm was commissioned by the Fitzgerald Private Clinic to capture a sense of calm, quiet luxury while maintaining the cleanliness expected from a surgery.
Top image: the Fitzgerald Private Clinic has a marble-clad archway. Above: its retail space features marble counters
“The service offer is premium and luxury, and the spaces that encapsulate it were designed to echo that at every touchpoint,” Kingston Lafferty Design founder Roisin Lafferty told Dezeen.
“We wanted to design a space that was tactile and all-encompassing with a sense of otherworldliness, incorporating associations of sterility with a balance of warmth.”
Kingston Lafferty Design plays with scale inside Dublin restaurant Cinnamon
Spread across two tight, 46-square-metre floors, the Dublin clinic houses retail, storage and waiting areas on the lower level while the first floor encapsulates three treatment rooms, a toilet, staff room and secondary waiting area.
“It is a very small space, so we needed to be clever when designing the layout to get the absolute maximum use from the space,” explained Lafferty. “Every element is jigsawed together to double up, offering both functionality and beauty.”
The interior of the arch is finished with terracotta-coloured tiles
Customers enter the clinic through a street-facing, pink-hued retail store with a micro cement floor and a curved wall lined with plaster tubes. According to Kingston Lafferty Design (KLD), these were designed to resemble putty and made from multiple layers of warm-toned plaster that were built up within a custom mould.
“We wanted the different surfaces to be tactile and combined in unexpected ways, almost calling for people to reach out and touch, and for everything to appear as though it was formed from the structure of the building, as though it was all meant to be there,” said Lafferty.
The clinic’s undulating pink plaster wall has three inset shelves
Set with three brass shelves, the undulating wall doubles as a retail display area and also conceals added storage space behind a fully tube-clad door.
The entrance area is anchored by a black and white terrazzo reception desk that sits under an Acquasanta marble archway. The underside of the arch is clad with zig-zagging matt red tiles that complement the tone of the marble.
The walls and floor of the waiting area are covered in black and white terrazzo
“The arch is the strongest element that frames the clinic experience,” the designer explained. “It highlights the sales and reception desk while encasing and concealing an existing structural beam. We built the arch to align with the depth of the custom reception desk, focusing on materiality both on the front facade and the inner depth.”
The skin clinic, which sits beyond the arch, contrasts with the soft pink tones of the store. It features a stainless steel staircase and black and white terrazzo flooring, with the archway marking the junction between the two.
Treatment rooms are clad in stainless steel
“The staircase was the only structural element that we kept in the design. We sought to make a feature of its angular form and framed it in steel and glass, the steel providing both a tactile wall covering and a vital storage bank with additional retail display for product,” Lafferty said.
An intimate waiting room wrapped in terrazzo and housing a bench seat upholstered in blue leather is located on the other side of the store’s curved, undulating wall.
Brass accents in the toilets add an element of warmth
On the first floor, mirror- and walnut-clad boxes create a series of interconnecting treatment rooms and corridors.
“The treatment rooms needed to be highly clinical, sterile and very easy to keep clean,” said Lafferty. “Hygiene was of the utmost importance to the client. So we wanted to find a balance so that it didn’t feel cold and unwelcoming.”
Blue terrazzo counters the sterility of the stainless steel
Lozenge-shaped mirrors were added to disrupt the rooms’ clean lines and add softness, while subtle colour changes were introduced through a blue tone in the terrazzo and a hint of green in the textured plaster walls and ceilings.
A seamless, full-height wall of walnut wood was added to the corridor outside the treatment rooms to contrast against the steel cabinetry and add warmth to the upper floor.
Health and self-care was a central theme in another of KLD’s recent refurbishment projects. Earlier this year, the studio incorporated green walls, a yoga studio and rooftop terrace into a co-working office in Belfast to help workers unwind.
Photography is by Ruth Maria Murphy.
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Curved seating, shelving and mirrors feature throughout Goodbody hair salon in Oakland, California, which design studio Homework has finished with salmon-pink accents.GoodBody, which specialises in cutting, colouring and styling textured hair, is located in downtown Oakland. It takes over a building that was previously host to several dated offices.
To transform the site into a modern salon, San Francisco-based studio Homework had to completely strip away any evidence of the previous fit-out.
Top image: GoodBody is set inside a spacious hall. Above: curved elements are used to break-up the space
As well as removing decorative elements, the studio tore down partition walls and knocked through a dropped ceiling to create a vast, double-height hall.
It was initially unclear as to how the space would be organised to accommodate the salon’s various service areas.
A semi-circular bench anchors the salon’s waiting area
“After rounds of iterations, we developed sinuous millwork curves to promote the service functions while defining the space,” explained Ben Work, who runs Homework alongside Susan Work.
Curved elements can be seen as soon as customers walk into GoodBody – a semi-circular bench has been placed in the salon’s entryway to delineate a waiting area.
Arched mirrors accompany the salon’s styling stations
The grooved, salmon-pink bench bends round to adjoin a matching desk where staff can stand and check appointments. Overhead hangs a quartet of brass pendant lamps.
Nearby sits a salmon-pink platform that dips inwards to form an arc shape. The platform is topped with chunky tiered shelves that display various hair and beauty products that are available for purchase.
Each mirror is illuminated by an LED strip light
On the opposite side of the room is a sequence of styling stations. Each one has a tall arched mirror framed by an LED strip light and a comfy swivel chair upholstered in caramel-brown leather.
These complement the salon’s buttermilk-coloured walls and the gold-velvet curtains that have been hung in front of all the doorways.
Curved shelving displays an array of hair and beauty products
At the rear of the salon is a huge vaulted opening which leads through to the hair-wash room.
New York hair salon Hawthorne Studio is designed for social distancing
This has been completed in a darker, richer palette – surfaces have been painted what the studio describes as a shade of “peacock green”, while the sinks are made from black porcelain.
A rounded, salmon-pink cabinet visually ties-in this room with the rest of the salon.
A vaulted opening looks through to the hair-washing area
Other striking hair salons to open this year include Hawthorne Studio in New York, which design practice BoND had to adapt to suit health and safety regulations put in place as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
All of the styling stations, for example, are mobile so that customers can be moved to sit six feet apart. Spaces are also divided by wooden frames instead of walls, so that staff can monitor how many people are entering the salon.
Photography is by Aubrie Pick.
Project credits:
Design: HomeworkStyling: Bianca Sotelo
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A tropical garden can be seen from within this spa in Sukhumvit, Bangkok, which architecture studio Space Popular has designed with soothing green and white treatment rooms.Infinity Wellbeing is set within a building on one of the side streets, or “sois”, that lead off Sukhumvit’s main road.
It is entered via a luscious garden planted with dragon trees and lipstick palms, which Space Popular hopes will offset the shops, food vendors and towering skyscrapers that cluster around the spa.
Above image: the garden that surrounds the spa’s entrance. Top image: one of the spa’s treatment rooms.
“Designing the arrival and departure sequence is perhaps the most challenging element as the interior ambience is highly contrasting with the bustling street atmosphere in Bangkok,” the studio’s founders, Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, told Dezeen.
“Through the leaves of the garden, the spa is in strong contrast to the street with its often chaotic collage of sounds and sights.”
The spa’s reception is decked out in calming shades of green and white
The leafy plants also help obscure views through to the interior of the spa, where the studio has continued the calming ambience by utilising a serene colour palette of off-whites and pastel greens.
Lesmes and Hellberg were particularly inspired to use the colour after coming across a local green-hued marble.
Chairs in the spa are part of Space Popular’s latest furniture collection
At the centre of the reception area is a fluted white service counter. Sheer white curtains have then been hung at the peripheries of the room, serving as a backdrop to customer seating areas.
The accompanying armchairs, recliners and bar stools are all from Space Popular’s latest range of furniture called The Second Collection. Each piece features a tubular mint-green framework and “petroleum-blue” upholstery.
Mint-green timber louvres line the spa’s corridors
Green tube-like bases also feature on the stone-topped side tables dotted throughout the room, which also come as part of The Second Collection.
Space Popular designs world’s first VR architecture conference as alternative to “boring” Zoom talks
A contrasting pop of colour is provided by the copper-tone grid that runs across the reception’s backlit ceiling. Stems of the grid extend down and away from the ceiling to form overhead lamps.
Green-terrazzo vanity units feature in the spa’s treatment rooms
Corridors lined with mint-coloured timber louvres lead through to Infinity Wellbeing’s white-painted treatment rooms, most of which have been finished with vanity stands and washbasins crafted from green terrazzo.
The garden-facing massage rooms are slightly moodier in tone – walls are clad in dark teal acoustic panels, while packaging foam is used to create coffered ceilings. Space Popular said it wanted to juxtapose high-end and humble materials like this from the outset of the project.
“It’s a contrast often seen throughout Bangkok, which despite its abundance of luxury and shine manages to maintain its agility and inventiveness through its market and street food culture,” the studio explained.
The moody massage rooms have up-close views of the garden
Only one of the treatment rooms, which boasts sandy-pink walls, diverts from the colour palette seen in the rest of the spa. It also has a dramatic tiered ceiling which staggers upwards into a cone-like shape.
“[The room] had very particular constraints due to where it was located – it doesn’t face the garden – so we decided to turn it into its own world,” added Space Popular.
A tiered ceiling is the focal point of another treatment room
This is the second branch that the studio has designed for the spa company. The first location, which is simply titled Infinity, was completed back in 2017. It’s situated in Bangkok’s Bang Rak district, occupying a pair of traditional Thai shophouses.
More recently Space Popular has designed the venue for Punto de Inflexión, the first-ever architecture conference to be held in virtual reality.
Photography is by Wison Tungthunya.
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A pale green lacquer table and dried plants are among the references to Greek architecture and “Californian freshness” in this spa in San Francisco designed by Jacqueline Sullivan.Monastery Studio is a spa and retail space in San Francisco, founded by Athena Hewett, that offers a range of facial and body services.
The light-filled space is designed to take cues from Hewett’s Greek heritage and her time spent in the Cyclades.
“Monastery Studio is inspired by Athena’s Greek heritage and memories of summers in the Cyclades – sun bleached architecture, ancient pottery, soft stones, the salty sea, diffused sunlight,” Sullivan told Dezeen.
“Though the space has an old world feel it also has a distinctly Californian freshness and sensibility,” she added.
Walls and flooring in the space are painted white to provide a neutral backdrop for the custom-built furnishings, ceramics and dried floral sculptures.
At the centre of the shop there is a chartreuse-coloured lacquer table with chunky circular legs and rounded edges designed by Shin Okuda of Los Angeles furniture studio Waka Waka. The surface forms a display area for the spa’s range of oils and serums.
Bottles of products and other trinkets, including dried flowers, rocks and pottery, are arranged across the thin boards that comprise a massive built-in shelving unit.
Proem Studio uses muted shades to design Cheeks & Co facial spa
To add texture to the space Sullivan installed a curving sculpture of brown and red plants that extends from the ground to the ceiling onto one of the walls.
“We played with shape, texture, colour and scale in a way that feels informed by the past but simultaneously very contemporary,” the designer added.
“Ultimately, we wanted the space to feel soft, special and thoughtfully considered, just like the Monastery oils themselves.”
Curved archways lead into the treatment rooms which are also painted white and flooded with natural light from a row of windows. The rooms are outfitted with a wood chair for patients, wooden stools and potted plants.
The exterior of the spa and store is clad with planks of black wood and fronted with three large windows.
Other facial spas include a skincare studio in Los Angeles with light pink accents designed by Proem Studio and a skincare store in England with cane and ash wood cabinets.
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