Cutting Space: An Innovative Approach to Salon Design

Designers Wei-Pin Wu and Chao-Yang Chen Reimagine the Salon Experience

The designers viewed hair styling as a means of expressing the layout of space. This perspective led them to re-tailor, thin-out, and re-allocate the salon space from the inside out, resulting in a 97 square-meter area with interesting allocations. The former decor was removed to highlight the hair styling process, and the tailored space was re-imagined, providing an effective visual focal point. The spatial textures of the color boundaries create a sense of partitioning conflict, offering users a novel salon space experience.

Throughout the salon, sharp linear tailoring is evident, from the entrance elevation that corresponds with the handle to the reception counter extending to the partition screen. All are presented as vertical chamfered surfaces, making it more challenging to look directly into the interior from the outside. A low reflexivity metal material was used to enhance the softness and lightness of objects, allowing larger fixed objects to maintain fluidity and openness in the spatial arrangement.

The space is divided into three areas: the entrance, reception, and work zone, creating new spatial layers. The dark-toned entrance serves as a buffer zone, and the reception area is linked to the entrance via a change in material, forming an independent spatial breakpoint together with the hair style photo booth. The work area uses the rugged dark-toned texture from the entrance area, which continues into the hair-cutting space, making the bright reception area the intermediate buffer between the entrance and the work area.

Design challenges included considering the possibility of movement being affected by the existing conditions of the old apartment. To adapt to the environment, the entrance space has a chamfered surface design to serve as an open-plan relaxation area. This allows the reception space to provide more buffering and extension effects. It can also serve as the storage space required for temporary seating when holding hair product courses, so as not to affect the movement paths of workers, effectively utilizing the remaining space. A hair style photo shoot booth has also been arranged, and storage spaces are hidden behind the working mirror cabinet to provide storage for the carts and the folding chairs.

The Cutting Space project started in August 2018 and was completed in December 2018 in Taipei, Taiwan. The design was awarded Silver in A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award in 2019. This prestigious award is given to top-of-the-line, creative, and professionally remarkable designs that illustrate outstanding expertise and innovation. These designs, admired for their strong technical characteristics and splendid artistic skill, showcase a remarkable level of excellence and introduce positive feelings, amazement, and wonder.