The Brief
A haircut is a service. The right room can make it an occasion.
Kingsmen at 313 Somerset was the salon group's first move into a men-only barber. The brief reached beyond cutting hair: a drinks-serving bar counter sits inside the salon, and the experience was meant to feel closer to a club than a chair you wait your turn for.
Quod Architects gave the room a single organising idea. A large sculptural centrepiece holds the middle of the floor, the element everything else is arranged around. It celebrates the ritual of grooming in a specialty barber and gives the space a clear, confident centre of gravity.
The sculptural centrepiece
Most barbers line their chairs along a wall of mirrors. Kingsmen does not. The room is built around a sculptural object at its centre, so the act of grooming happens in the round, with the barber's chair given the standing of a stage rather than a station.
Put the chair at the centre of the room, and a haircut stops being an errand.
A Note from the Studio
The bar counter
A drinks counter inside the salon changes the rhythm of a visit. It gives a client somewhere to be before and after the chair, and it sets the register of the place: unhurried, sociable, a little indulgent.
The BarA drinks counter built into the salon. Somewhere to be before and after the chair.
WaitingAn unhurried place to sit, closer to a club than a queue.
In Closing
Grooming, given a centre
A men-only barber needed its own character, distinct from the group's other salons. The answer was spatial: a room with a clear middle, and a bar that turns a visit into an evening.
Kingsmen makes the case that a haircut, properly framed, deserves a room designed for it.
Q.E.D.