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Even the ceiling is designed to be special - because you'll spend a lot of time looking at it when you get a facial.
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. We actually have a fig tree in our backyard, says Scott, co-founder of Scott and Scott Architects. And 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 pod 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 clean 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. When you've getting a facial, you've looking up a lot, Scott says. So 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 vibrant pink surprise, describes Scott, all minimal lines and smooth surfaces washed in a pink-tinged light. It was important to do that in a subtle way, rather than there being images of figs everywhere, says Scott. It's more of a subtle version of a fig.
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