Path of Daylight: A Serene and Fashionable Hair Salon

A High-End Salon Space Designed by Jao-Wen Shao

What sets Path of Daylight apart from other hair salons is its unique design approach. Jao-Wen Shao combined the client's original hardware and glass materials with new additions to create linear spaces that echo the concept of forest paths. The salon is divided into four distinct areas: the public area and three salon boxes, each with its own style. The urban gentlemen, socialites, and modern metropolis boxes are designed with specific hardware, glass, and mirror materials to add texture and enhance the client's high-end service experience.

The realization of the Path of Daylight design involved the use of various materials, including glasses, hardware, painted solid wood, mirrors, light screens, and plastic tiles. The indoor area spans 100 ping and encompasses the public space hallway, reservation counter, and private salon boxes.

Path of Daylight is characterized by its forest paths inspiration, steady cold colors, elegant light-pink colors, and abundant natural daylight. The design team, led by Jao-Wen Shao, carefully considered how the salon would interact with its users. The entrance design incorporates ironware and light-glass materials to create a sense of lightness and transparency. This design choice not only aligns with the cabin-in-the-woods concept but also merges natural daylight with the indoor traffic flow and light-toned interior colors, creating a peaceful and inviting atmosphere. The spacious traffic flow allows customers to move freely, and during rainy weather, they can even drive their cars into the hallway and visit the counter or salon boxes, combining aesthetics with functionality.

The Path of Daylight project was completed in March 2020 in Taiwan. Extensive research underpinned the design process, with a focus on using light color tones in the public area, non-equilateral solid geometries created with light hardware, and the incorporation of inclined turnings to mimic a natural forest path. The salon boxes feature mature and steady cold colors for the urban gentlemen theme, and soft and elegant light-pink colors for the socialites theme. The use of mirrors and hardware, which blur the line between virtual and real, helps define the modern metropolis theme.

Overcoming creative and technical challenges was crucial for the success of the Path of Daylight design. Jao-Wen Shao had to strike a balance between the client's desire for a metropolis fashion aesthetic and the need to avoid a concrete, wooden house appearance. Through precise angle calculations and construction methods, the designer used black hardware to outline linear elements, resulting in a three-dimensional design that reinterprets the cabin-in-the-woods style in an abstract and modern way.

The hardware used in the design creates a facade for the modern metropolis theme, with a simple and modern style that imparts a light and transparent visual sense. Polished mirrors spread brightness throughout the space, adding a touch of modernity and simplicity. The urban gentlemen and socialites themes feature a mature and steady deep-blue color and a soft and elegant light-pink color, respectively. Lattices and black linear elements create a sense of modernity and a visually pleasing rhythm.

Path of Daylight is a testament to Jao-Wen Shao's design prowess and attention to detail. The salon's serene ambiance, fashionable design, and seamless integration of nature and technology have earned it the prestigious Iron A' Design Award in the Interior Space, Retail, and Exhibition Design category in 2022. This award recognizes designs that are not only well-designed and practical but also innovative and capable of meeting professional and industrial requirements. Path of Daylight is a true masterpiece that contributes to a better world through its fulfillment and positive impact on its users.