Projects: Beauty & Spa

Staff -- Interior Design, 12/1/2011 2:00:00 AM

Winner: Moriyuki Ochiai Architects/Twoplus
Project: Arkhe
Location: Chiba, Japan

Sometimes a name can tell you everything. If you don't happen to speak Japanese, however, you probably don't know that this hair salon's chosen moniker is a reference to a traditional belief that water is the source of all creation. Moriyuki Ochiai riffed on that concept for his primary design statement. Directly below the exposed ceiling, ribbons of flexible sheet aluminum simulate water's reflectivity, endowing the 1,300-square-foot space with a sensitivity to changes in daylight as well as to the ceiling fixtures' shifts from bright white to indigo. (Or think of the multiple waves as softly cascading curls.) The salon has already become the talk of the neighborhood. Should the hairdresser ever decide to move, it won't be a problem, luckily, to take the installation along. Ochiai devised it for easy disassembly and reassembly.

Honoree: Isay Weinfeld
Project: Spa Fasano Renata de Abreu
Location: Punta del Este, Uruguay

With an exterior of raw concrete, like the bungalows at the Hotel Fasano las Piedras, the spa offers the luxury of wooden paneling and a lap pool with hillside views.

Merit: HBA/Hirsch Bedner Associates
Project: Espa at the Istanbul Edition
Location: Istanbul Edition

Ottoman hammams inspired the faceted intricacies of the fiberglass feature wall over the swimming pool and the powder-coated screens in the gym.