Hair room TOARU by Ateliers Takahito Sekiguchi is a hair salon in Saitama, Japan.
This is the hair salon located on a roadside in rural area famous for wood resources, which needed to be rebuilt due to land readjustment. Cars come and go on the road in front of the site all day long, and the surrounding landscape is dominated by parking lots. However, if you leave the city area a little, three-fourths of the city area is covered with forests, and the forestry industry is thriving, and the wood called Nishikawa lumber has long been transported to Tokyo by raft. The client requested the light space with high ceiling, environment with greenery, large spaces and sufficient ventilation performance as a countermeasure against the corona disaster, and the sustainable architecture that guarantees these performances. Here, we thought of a natural architecture in which these diverse situations are mixed in multiple layers. We started by dismantling and architecturally recombining the wood, which is a resource of the city, the green landscape, and the mirrors and counters that make up the cutting space, rather than the design, purpose, and form of the building. On top of that, we layered the scenery and greenery of past and present city, construction methods that make use of woods, environmental performance, and things.
We staggered the 2.3m square cut space with a big mirror (RC wall) that exceeds human scale, and placed a big wooden counter (CLT roof) in between. RC walls are structurally self-supporting against out-of-plane loads and can have many openings. CLT roofs create a long-span frame without beams, reducing the weight of the building and suppressing the heat load. RC walls are structurally self-supporting against out-of-plane loads and can be provided with many openings. They are suitable for both fireproof and environmental performance, and can maximize the texture of wood. The combined structure of RC walls and CLT roofs can be attached by a simple and highly versatile construction method using only general angles and screws. Angles are pre-attached when arranging reinforcement for RC walls, and after placement, the CLT roofs are joined to the angles with screws. Buildings are constructed using the same construction method as furniture. Indirect light shines through between the roofs, illuminating the room softly. The wind that flows along roofs promotes indoor ventilation that is effective against viruses without curling hairs. Greens planted continuously inside and outside are amplified by reflection, and create the well-being environment covered with greenery. The woods that were once transported to Tokyo by raft are used as roofs, and the cars that are currently coming and going on the roadside are reflected in the building, superimposing the landscape flowing horizontally from the past to the present. The mirror in the cutting space changes from one that reflects a person’s appearance to one that reflects the scenery of the city, and one that reflects oneself in the scenery of the city. The small activity elements transcend the meanings, uses, and scales of things, and create a natural architecture in which things are multi-layered.
