The MQ Studio hair salon is located in the China World Trade Center, in the center of Beijing's business district, and is surrounded by a variety of fashion stores. The facility therefore had to fit this unique location and connect with the vibrant life of the city with over a million inhabitants. The project was designed and completed by CAA at the end of August 2018. The design is not an ordinary hair salon, but an art sculpture displayed in the center of the China World Trade Center.
Within the room, a shimmering ceiling suggests a golden river that slowly flows into the distance in the evening light. The golden ceiling sculpture rises from the floating clouds of light and offers visitors an impressivevisual experience. This creates a feeling of infinite possibilities that often occurs in the vastness of the sky.
At various points in the room, makeup mirrors grow down from the high ceiling like stalactites. The combination of aesthetics and function is particularly seamless. TheFloor plan of the salonhas an irregular shape and has four large inclined support columns.
The unique structure and small space presented various design challenges before the design team. Instead of hiding the industrial facilities behind ceiling panels, the architects decided to highlight the ceiling portion by using a generative design algorithm to create an impressive parametric shape that a Wave pattern simulated.
Conceptually, the ceiling should look like water surface sparkling under the sun. Highly reflective, gold-colored stainless steel was used to create the ceiling. After studying the material's reflective properties, the CAA team precisely aligned each surface to let the light refract at different angles.
Assembling the ceiling was a major challenge for the construction team. Over 300 different hexagons were crafted and installed by hand. The conventional soldering process was not possible due to the sensitive material properties. It took the design and construction team several months to develop the best solution and enable the final installation of the interior artwork.
Architects:CAA
Ort: World Trade Center III, Peking, China
Area: 150.0 sqm
Project year: 2018
Photographs: Zhuoying Ren, Felix Amiss
