Design Crush: Inside Fig, an Intimate, Fig-Inspired (Yes, Really) Facial Bar

When Jessica Walsh approached Susan Scott with her vision for Fig, a Vancouver-based facial bar with a design that would take after its namesake fruit, Scott was immediately tickled. €œWe actually have a fig tree in our backyard,€ says Scott, co-founder of Scott and Scott Architects. €œAnd the fig is a vibrant, soft green on the outside and you rip it open and It's got these weird, sort of unexpected pink seed-type things on the inside.€

Using a mood board Walsh had created as a jumping-off point €” one filled with lush fabrics and bespeckled tiles €” Scott and her team transformed a former fro-yo shop in Kitsilano into the chic, sensual facial bar it is today. Soothing greens coat almost every bit of the narrow 400-square-foot space, from the bespoke Japanese barber chairs in each facial €œpod€ to the specks in the terrazzo flooring by System One Floor Solutions. There are curves in the perforated steel shelves €” a material Walsh favoured for its €œclean and clinical€ look €” and centrepiece island, which is topped with a slab of emerald-green marble. And then there'sthe ceiling, which stretches a generous almost 12 feet and boasts built-in dimmable LED fixtures that bathe each facial pod in a warm, gentle glow. €œWhen you've getting a facial, you've looking up a lot,€ Scott says. €œSo the ceiling is actually critical to your experience.€

Also crucial to the facial experience are proper acoustics. To this end, Scott and her team cocooned each womb-like pod with floor-to-ceiling velvet curtains, which help dampen outside sound so clients can focus on the calming tunes or meditation session €” delivered via headphones €” during their facial treatment. Fig's bathroom, meanwhile, is a sweet nod to the inside of a fig: It's a €œvibrant pink surprise,€ describes Scott, all minimal lines and smooth surfaces washed in a pink-tinged light. €œIt was important to do that in a subtle way, rather than there being images of figs everywhere,€ says Scott. €œIt's more of a subtle version of a fig.€