RIAI | Irish Architecture Awards

Citation

There were 9 submissions in the Best Retail Space class, with the award given to The Salon in a much-modified town-centre building. The Jury noted the disparity in the scale of the entries, ranging from fully-blown out-of town shopping centres to meticulously-detailed fit-outs.

Architect's Comments:

A lift offers the primary vertical access resulting in a sectional spatial emphasis between each floor plate organized as a plan of rooms: ground floor of double height, a gated entrance hall, reception, nail bar, wash room and cutting room divided by floor to ceiling glass screens and saloon doors. A first floor of double height, coffee station, cutting room, washroom and therapy room. A second floor of a pair of salons linked by a washroom, divided by frameless glass screens and saloon doors.

A narrow interlocked double void divides and connects rooms with diagonal sectional views. It acts as an artificial light and air vent for the stack of rooms. The original façade was maintained though adjusted at ground floor, repaired and painted.

The ambition was to make a retail townhouse that was light, reflective, materially rich and spatially economic with primary focus on the individual experience. The interiors are both theatrical and intimate, seeking to amplify the seductive ambiguity of public and private that is the beauty industry.

Client's Comments:

Once we decided to move premises, as we had out grown our original salon, we also decided to take the opportunity to create a new salon that reflected our ethos as the south of Ireland’s premium hair salon.

We wanted a salon that would fill the three floors of our new premises on Emmet Place.
We needed to have a place that would allow us to maximise the number of hair cutting & washing stations but also very importantly to us, we also wanted to create a salon environment that felt intimate & comfortable for the clients and the stylists. We were not interested in creating a factory.

The idea that the architects developed for us was to make a hairdressing salon that would be filled with smaller intimate rooms that would be calm and friendly. From these rooms the client would also get to see the activity of the house through the internal glass walls & mirrors in the rooms.

We have been opened since Aug 2007 and are really enjoying working in the new salon. The client feed back is really positive too.