Salon L’OCCOCO / COTAPAREDES Arquitectos

Architects: COTAPAREDES Arquitectos
Location: Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, Jalisco, Mexico
Director: Mtro. Arq. Abraham Cota Paredes
Area: 92.0 m2
Project Year: 2018
Photographs: Cesar Béjar

Collaborators: Alejandro González, Sergio Iván Chávez Padilla, Alexis Coronel Enríquez, Marcela Solorio, Darío Bravo

Text description provided by the architects. Located in the city of Guadalajara Jalisco this project meant our incursion into the commercial genre. The client commissioned us to redesign the brand of beauty salons L’OCCOCÓ, one of the largest franchises of beauty salons in Mexico. They wanted to reflect an image of elegance with the necessary character so that the clients felt identified with the brand. The exercise began by analyzing the existing salons, understanding the dynamics of use, the furniture necessary for the performance of salon activities, the flows of customers and staff and the optimal spaces to work freely. Our language had to simplify the current, to purify it, we had to identify the indispensable and readjust what could be adapted in another way. Once understanding this we proceeded to the intervention, we had to generate a typology that could be replicated to comply with the characteristics of a franchise.

Our goal was to achieve simplicity, freeing the space of obstructions simplifying the design of the furniture to help generate spatial continuity. To bring the quality of character and elegance to space and as reminiscent of the Pamplona bus station, we decided to apply slender wooden slats in full and empty sequences solving the problem of the ceiling and walls. This superposition of planes creates an envelope that produces an atmosphere that the user is able to feel when crossing the access threshold. We use the color white as a resource to look for abstraction and luminosity. The artificial lighting is integrated into the envelope, following the continuing pattern of the straps in the longitudinal and transverse direction.

The model project commissioned to us was adapted for a commercial space with atypical measures since it is located in a corner with two views, which allows longer routes. The cutting area and washing area were divided into 2 scenarios, through a screen with vertical panels that allow views and air circulation. This causes a promenade or travels from one stage to another, providing privacy to each space. The employee area is hidden, attached to the service and bathroom income. The result is a space that one feels when one lives, waiting for the user to leave thinking about the experience of being in a place he had not seen before.