Barbershop Interior Design (Project in Marbella, Spain)

When I got contacted about a barbershop interior design project in San Pedro (near Marbella, Spain) I was excited and a bit nervous at the same time since this was the first commercial project of that kind for me. I have done before restaurants and hotels design, but never a beauty salon or a barbershop. Aftually, that’s the reason why I love interior design job as it can be anything but boring. Every new project is totally different and gives the opportunity to express creativity in many different ways.

In one of the previous posts I have shared the design concept for this project:

We have picked a masculine, luxury cars inspired theme for the space. The walls going to be finished with concrete, the work desks for the barber stations will be made from aged wood and we picked a sofa and chairs in dark brown leather.

Later on when we were discussing with the client the concept and my initial proposals we decided to change the color of the walls for a mud green, to make it look more original rather than traditional grey.

I used the single large mirror with LED lighting for several stations to give more depth and spaciousness to a rather small and narrow room. Wooden frames will visually divide each station. Floating shelves look light and neat and are used for the products display.

When designing commercial spaces it is important to bear in mind several important considerations and industry requirements, such as for example, handicap accessibility:

I paid lots of attention to the design of the reception and waiting area since this is the “business card” of any establishment. Apart from the usual cashier desk, I allocated a small bar. Waiting for your turn at barbershop could be one of the most boring things to do so we decided to pay lots of attention to entertainment – TV, PlayStations, drinks for the clients, free WiFi. We wanted to make this place not only a barbershop, but a sort of “gentleman club” where men will come to meet up with friends, have a drink and also have a haircut or their beard groomed.

I played around with the car theme but at the same time didn’t want to make it too straightforward by placing the parts of the cars or pictures of them. For example, the LED lighting on the ceiling resembles the pattern on some tires, and the net with LED bulbs above the bar area is a referring the net pockets inside some cars.

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