A Women's Resting Space in the City | Studio DOTCOF

MMJ Nail & Lash is located in a commercial building in the core area of Jing'an Temple, a bustling commercial center in downtown Shanghai, surrounded by shopping malls and office buildings, where a large number of white-collar workers are busy at work every day. The building has attracted a large number of small commercial businesses due to its favorable location near major shopping malls and office buildings, such as there are more than 20 nail and eyelash shops in the building, making the space crowded and the density very high.

The owner of the project is an old friend of the designer for more than ten years, and the designer understands that she has been committed to supporting and incubating women's entrepreneurship for more than ten years, with the goodwill to improving women's life and life realization through business. Through the communication, we agreed to extend the owner's goodwill to her customers, so that they can have a better experience while enjoying the nail and eyelash services. After research and communication, we learned that the majority of customers are white-collar women from the surrounding office buildings, who are busy with their work on weekdays, and most of them choose to come to consume and experience the service during their lunch breaks, after work, and on weekends; and the operation time for nail and eyelash projects is not short, at least more than one hour, so the idea emerges: to providing customers with a resting space in the high-density city.

In terms of specific spatial operation, the designer left a large space, and then used the half-height platform and incompletely closed walls to cut out some small spaces as the eyelash rooms, nail sofa area, dressing area and other functional spaces, to avoid rigidly separated the original space into crowded small rooms. All wall corners are rounded or curved, giving the space a sense of stability and soft wrapping. The floor-to-ceiling windows on the east side provide natural light and view to the space, and the design leaves them intact in the large space to avoid the loss of spaciousness due to the separation of walls. Mirrors are used on the end walls on both sides of the floor-to-ceiling windows, expanding the perceived size of the space. The semi-transparent curtains give a hazy sense of distance to the high-rise building views outside the window, providing a psychological cue for the space users, that is, the white-collar workers who briefly leave those office buildings, to withdraw from the workplace.

The comfort of the seats and sofas was an important consideration, and was repeatedly tested, sampled and confirmed in the design. Due to the constraints of the construction time, the original ceiling and flooring were retained, and the designer combined the color of the original wooden flooring with the wall and ceiling to unify the space in beige-gray micro-cement material. The solid wood and green plants provide warm and soft quality to the space users; while the glass and metal materials are used as supplements to give the space some “vitality” so that it is not too “dull”.

After the completion of the project, the designer went to the site to solve some post-construction site issues. We heard a regular customer chatting with the staff, saying, “It's great that you've finally finished the renovation and opened the salon. I just want to come in at noon to have a eyelash care and have a good sleep...” Hearing this, we felt that all the hard work in the early stages had been worthwhile...

Project: A Women's Resting Space in the City ---MMJ Nail & Lash Jing'an Temple Store

Client: MMJ Nail & Lash

Design Company: Studio DOTCOF

Design Team: Chen Xi, Mu Miao

Construction Company: Chen Yizhong & Team

Area: 68.5sqm

Completed: 2024.12

Address: No.172 Yuyuan Road, Jing’an District, Shanghai, China

Photographer: Mu Miao

Main materials: micro-cement, oak, glass, mirror