Swirl Salons: Design for Curly Hair Salon

Hi everyone! My name is Sydney and I am a rising Senior at Charlotte Latin School in North Carolina. For my project I wanted to combine my interest in design and my knowledge of curly hair to create a space where all people with naturally curly hair would feel inspired and empowered.

My goal was to create a space that provided lots of natural light, bright colors, and fresh air so that even though the salon takes up a small footprint, customers would feel comfortable in the space. As a mixed person with a lot of naturally curly hair, I remember walking into an unspecialized salon once and sitting there as the stylist grunted and acted irritated by how much hair I had. I remember feeling horribly ashamed and embarrassed of my hair. Salon time should be a celebration of each person's natural beauty-- a time to relax and feel good about yourself, not a time to feel uncomfortable or insecure. I have since learned to celebrate my curls and I wanted to share this feeling of empowerment with all people with naturally curly hair.

Online Model:

Tinkercad software

Sketchbook

Pencils

Architectural scale

3D Model:

Wine Box

Paints

Patterned papers

Green and white paper

Shrink plastic

Micro pens

Mirrors

Glue

Clay

Wood

Pencils

Architectural Scale

Plastic sheets

Plastic straw

Tissue paper

When using Tinkercad for a design, you need to make sure that you have a good scale so that everything in your design would be a realistic size if blown up to the size of a full shipping container (I used a scale of 10 mm = 1 ft ). Tinkercad was super helpful to me in the planning process because I already had an idea in my mind for what I wanted it to look like, so I was able to move my components around and change their sizes without having to make full design sketches first. However, if you are having trouble coming up with ideas for your design, it's a good idea to take an architectural scale, a pencil, and a sketchbook and sketch out some floor plan and elevation design ideas. If you are working with others, you definitely want to draw out some plans to scale so that others will be able to follow your design.

For the inside of my design, I knew that customers could feel cramped with a small space so I made sure to make the inside feel as roomy as possible. I added glass ceiling so that customers and workers would have the benefits of the natural light coming in to make them feel refreshed, but the glass would also be tinted so that they would not get overheated. I also added glass doors so that the space did not feel closed off. I made the base color of all of the walls white and had my accent color be mostly yellow so that the bright colors would help open up the space a bit. I added a plant wall with live plants that would help to freshen the air and put a menu on the plant wall for customers to be able to see what services the salon offers. I created four customer stations with a mirror, sink, chair, and shelving all together to conserve space so that customers would not have to move around to sinks in different locations and the area would feel less crowded. The only thing separate from those stations is the hair drying chair that I placed in the back corner. The last thing I added is a painted white brick wall with a sign that says "ALL curly hair is beautiful" to promote empowerment of the customers.

On the outside, I added a black and yellow "Swirl Salons" sign on each side of the shipping container and surrounded the signage with some vines to reflect the feel of the inside on the outside. I chose the name "Swirl" as a reference to how my family has affectionately referred to my multi-racial identity. I also put a brick stand by the front doors for customers to check in and I put a menu with a small Swirl Salons sign at the top on the front of the stand. I knew that friends or family that accompanied customers to their salon appointments as well as customers waiting for their appointment time would not be able to wait inside so I created a nice sitting area for them outside. I made a painted white brick patio that surrounded the front of the salon as well as one of the sides and placed a couch and a chair with some pillows along side two tables and a plant for the patio area. I wanted to make sure people had a shady area to sit in so I put planks of wood together to form a ceiling to cover the patio area and I put lights around the edge so that the area would be well-lit when the sun starts to set.

For the model I compiled all of the supplies that I already had that I thought I could use and then made a list of anything I needed to get from the craft store. In this part it is super important that you have a scale that makes sense and that all of your pieces are to scale so that you don't have any pieces that are abnormally sized. Throughout this part I took my architectural scale with me everywhere so that I could measure everything I was thinking about using (I used a scale of 1/2 inch = 1 ft). I used a wine box to be my base shipping container and cut it down to match the dimensions of my shipping container and then used a spare piece of wood to create the floor of the outside patio space. I then painted the box white and added white brick patterned paper to the patio space, host stand, and inside accent wall, and added a mossy patterned paper to the plant wall. I planned to make some of my components such as sinks and outside tables out of clay. I planned to make the inside chairs out of folded paper. I found some small mirrors at the craft store and planned to make signage out of shrink plastic.

I took a sheet of plastic and cut it out in the shape of my glass ceiling and in the shape of my two doors and set those pieces aside. I sketched out my "ALL curly hair is beautiful" and "Swirl Salons" signs on shrink plastic twice as big as they would need to be in the model and then I put them in the oven to harden and shrink. I then sculpted the sinks and outside tables out of clay and set them aside to be painted after they had hardened. I folded paper to serve as the inside shelves and attached cut up pieces of a plastic straw to serve as the pockets for hot tools. I measured out two pieces of wood and took some paper to wrap around them and I wrote out the two menus on them. I found a chair and a couch at the craft store to use for my patio space and I made pillows out of pieces of tissue paper. I cut out a piece of paper in the shape of the vines on the outside of the shipping container. I scrunched individual tiny squares of gift tissue paper around the end of a straw and dipped them in glue before attaching to the vine base, to create a plant-like texture. I got a piece of brown, corrugated paper and cut it out in the shape of my patio ceiling and I also used some fairy lights from the craft store for the outside lighting. I made my host stand out of pieces of wood and glued them together, then wrapped my brick patterned paper around them and glued the menu onto that.

Once I had all of my components, it was time to put the whole model together. I took my scale and measured everything once more to make sure that I hadn't gotten the dimensions off on anything. I remade anything that I had messed up on. Once all of my pieces were the way I wanted them, I marked on the shipping container where everything should go and started assembling everything. Then I added any finishing touches that were needed and I was done!

Throughout this design process, I had to really contemplate what would attract customers the most as well as keeping them feeling happy and fulfilled while they were in the salon. This was a really fun design to put together so I hope you all enjoy! Thanks for reading!