Les Dada East Popincourt | Joshua Florquin Architecture

Les Dada East is a hair & styling salon located near Bastille in the heart of Paris. The salon’s name is an homage to the 20th century Dada art movement.  

In a hair & beauty salon we come to dedicate time to oneself, where we take a moment out of the everyday chaotic city routine. The primary vision was to create a space in hard contrast with the chaotic city frenzy. A space where you feel in connection with yourself, nature and its beauty, where you breathe and come to rest. An oasis, a forest in the city. 

This definition and concept is translated into a lateral pine wood wall & ceiling element composed of 238 sculpted lamellae that make us think of tree trunks and branches. You feel as if you were walking in the forest. This technical wall element is dedicated to the more commercial visual communicating part of the salon.   

Opposite to the pine wood wall a curved continuous tile white wall contrasts the whole and is dedicated to the actual work-oriented functions of the salon. It contains storage and divides the floor plan into a front and back shop. This way entrance, register, waiting room, barber service are visually separated from the cutting and coloring area in the back shop.

Lighting is integrated between ceiling lamellae creating indirect soothing lighting which reminds us of light piercing through leafs.

The pine wood lamellae matrix creates visual intersections and perspectives and enable the incorporate a shelve system used to display products a vegetal concept making the wooden pine wall an actual metaphor of trees trunks which plants use to lean, climb, and rest on.

The plant palate is composed of forest undergrowth plants such as Edera, Ferns who climb searching for light and epiphytic plants like Orchidaceae who grow on trees in tropical forests.

The vegetation links this urban project in a direct manner to nature. It contributes to the forest experience and the overall well being while getting a haircut.