ZENustas Hair Salon by Lorena Antea Caruana and Naoki Watanabe Is Granted the A' Design Award in Interior Space and Exhibition Design

Lorena Antea Caruana and Naoki Watanabe honored for interior space and exhibition design by the international grand jury of the 2021 - 2022 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 22, 2022 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has announced that ZENustas Hair Salon by Lorena Antea Caruana and Naoki Watanabe, designed for Hi-Dea, has been granted the A' Design Award in the Interior Space and Exhibition Design category. The award was conferred within the 2021 - 2022 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

What the A' Design Award Means

The Iron A' Design Award is awarded to good designs that meet the rigorous professional and industrial standards set by the A' Design Awards. This recognition is reserved for works that demonstrate a solid understanding of design principles and show creativity within their execution. Recipients of the Iron A' Design Award are acknowledged for their practical innovations and contributions to their respective fields, providing solutions that improve quality of life and foster positive change. These designs are a testament to the skill and dedication of their creators, showcasing their ability to address real-world challenges through thoughtful design.

Regarding ZENustas Hair Salon

ZENustas is a hair salon located in Yaizu, near Mount Fuji in Japan. The 80 square meter interior is composed mainly of two materials: MDF with a dark wood finish and white washable wallpaper, separated by a horizontal line at table height. A backlit feature wall in polycarbonate holds plants and gives a contemporary interpretation of traditional Japanese rice paper facades. The feature wall also improves the light reaching customers seated in front of the mirrors. Freestanding short walls with oriented mirrors increase the number of stations and guide the customer flow.

About Lorena Antea Caruana and Naoki Watanabe

Lorena Antea Caruana is an Architect and Interior Designer from Milan. After graduating from Politecnico di Milano she moves to Amsterdam where she starts developing spaces built all over the world. In 2020 she founds HI-DEA, an Architecture, and Interior Design firm, right before moving to Japan. In this country, she starts developing her own Architectural poetic, where new minimalism collaborates with Nature reducing the distances between the built environment and sustainability, an approach where ethic and aesthetic meet.

Award Record

With this recognition, Lorena Antea Caruana and Naoki Watanabe is a winner of 1 A' Design Award.

About the A' Interior Space, Retail and Exhibition Design Award

The A' Interior Design Award is an international interior design competition recognizing good interior designs by interior designers and architects worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to interior designers, interior architects, architects and decorators from all countries. Typical entries include residential interiors, restaurants, hotels, offices, galleries and retail stores. The awarded interior designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/interior

About A' Design Award & Competition

Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/135762
A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/135762
Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!135762
Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/313331
Further Information from the Laureate: https://hi-dea.com/portfolio/hair-salon-yaizu/

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

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Fact Sheet

The Work

Project: ZENustas Hair Salon
Function: Hair Salon
Category: Interior Space and Exhibition Design
Discipline: Spatial Design
Industry: Architecture and Packaging & Retail
Colors: Black, Saddle Brown, Dim Gray, Lavender and Gray
Images: 5
Client: Hi-Dea

The Recognition

Laureate: Lorena Antea Caruana and Naoki Watanabe
Country: Netherlands
Recognition: A' Design Award
Edition: 2021 - 2022
Design ID: #135762

Credits

Team: Lorena Antea Caruana and Naoki Watanabe
Image Credits: Image #No.1: Lorena Antea Caruana (Photo credits / Architect) Image #No.2: Lorena Antea Caruana (Photo credits / Architect) Image #No.3: Lorena Antea Caruana (Photo credits / Architect) Image #No.4: Lorena Antea Caruana (Photo credits / Architect) Image #No.4: Lorena Antea Caruana (Photo credits / Architect)

Design Details

Unique Properties: Yaizu is a town located near Mount Fuji in Japan. Here, the Natural space bursts into the Urban one defining highly suggestive scenarios. Similarly, in the Beauty Salon, Nature is brought into the space adding an iconic touch to the interiors. The backlit feature wall in polycarbonate is a contemporary interpretation of the traditional Japanese rice paper facades. This wall, hosting dimensional plants, is also a tribute to the traditional Japanese painting, setting a bold contrast between figure and background.
Inspiration: ZENustas is a word composed by merging the Japanese word Zen, meaning All, with the Latin word Venustas, the word for Beauty. The space aims to celebrate various forms of beauty, from natural one, proper of the Zen culture, to human-made beauty. The inclusive space is composed of Eastern and Western Architectural languages that synergistically shape the Interiors shaping a vibrant but still relaxing space.
Research: Taking inspiration from the natural surroundings, the Beauty Salon aims to reflect on the idea of Threshold in Japanese traditional architecture: the space between outside and inside. In this space, the Threshold is represented by the feature wall with nature and backlit panels. Located to be visible from the outside, the feature wall invites the customers to access the space to explore the new functions.
Challenge: A challenging point of the design has been understanding the relevant architectural elements of the Japanese tradition and translate them into a space with a contemporary look and feel and destination. The use of the oriented short walls, coming from the Western tradition produces an almost circular customer flow, enriching the straightness of accesses and paths so typical of the Japanese tradition. The rounded shape language, loaned by the Italian architectural tradition completes the straight-looking pure geometry typical of this area, while providing surprising touchpoints.
Realization and Technology: The Hair Salon reflects a simple shape language where only a few materials compose the space, reaching the essential. The construction processes have been reduced by using standardized furniture and repeated simple bespoke elements in natural materials, while the whole renovation has been completed in 7 days. The wall with backlit panels in polycarbonate is the standing out feature element, the more expressive and articulated-looking component of the space. This wall aims to improve the light exposure to the customers seating in front of the mirror, defining intense and diffuse lighting.
Operation and Interaction: ZENustas Hair Salon's design reflects a holistic approach. The wooden floor texture orientation creates a more intuitive customer journey that, from the entrance, naturally leads the customer towards the hairdressing stations. The wooden floor texture settles with the direction of the freestanding vertical short walls, providing consistency to the space. These oriented walls serve different purposes: increasing the number of available stations by optimizing the use of the space and, through the oriented mirrors, providing customers with the possibility of looking at the surrounding without leaving their chairs.
Project Duration and Location: ZENustas Hair Salon is located in Yaizu, in proximity of the Mount Fuji in Japan. The project lasted 3 months while the construction phase lasted 7 days only.
Specifications: The 80 square meters space is mainly composed of two materials: MDF with a Dark wood finish and White washable wallpaper. By defining a horizontal datum line at the height of the tables, the two materials separate the lower from the upper part of the space providing a simple and yet contemporary look to the space. LED lighting used in the store increases efficiency while reducing the costs and the dimmable lights support the energy saving by interacting with the daylight.
Keywords: japanese interiors, japalian, zen-ustas, hi-dea interiors, italian japanese design, japan hair salon