Looks’ salon at Mumbai’s Seawoods, Grand Central Mall marks the Delhi-based brand’s first foray into western India. The primary design intention was to create a distinctive salon space–inside and out–to help introduce the brand to a new city and create an impact within the fabric of Mumbai’s highly competitive hair and beauty marketplace. 

Identifying ways in which the brand’s value and identity could be reinforced through the design solution, the final design, therefore, emerges as a reaction to an opportunity: a curvilinear lattice-like structure that blends elements of branding, materiality and function, lending a unique identity to the salon. The site setting inside a mall came with several challenges; an oblique demising-line in the front, and an odd-shaped parcel. The store-front’s extensive length and an intention to provide a public face that feels transparent while simultaneously ensuring privacy for the indoors, manifest as major determinantsofthe lattice’s morphological design. The lattice has been modelled to cut across the front demising-line, piercing through the salon’s glass façade, while visually adjusting the store-front’s lengthand creating a distinct first impression.Due to the constraints of plywood as a material, a composition of several, unique, horizontal fin elements are conceived to reinforce the lattice’s self-supporting structure and to bind the curvilinear elements together.Functionally, they alsodouble up as storage-cum-display shelves, while addressing concerns for indoor privacy,shielding the interior spaces from the outsiders’ eyes.