IRO Hair Salon by Reiichi Ikeda // Osaka, Japan.

Humble materials considered beautifully, intricate patterns on the shopfront, pristine joinery pieces that double up as room dividers – these are just some of the reasons I was instantly drawn to the IRO hair salon in Osaka, Japan. Designed by Reiichi Ikeda in collaboration with graphic designer Yuma Harada of UMA/design farm, this deceivingly simple and elegant interior is the epitome of Japanese design – where everything is perfectly balanced, restrained, elegant, honest and “just so”. Never ostentations or over the top.

Crazy facts time. The glass on the shop window is embellished with frosted stripes designed to produce a flickering moiré pattern at viewpoints where they overlap. Apparently the angle of these lines matches the IRO logo, in which the ‘O’ has been rotated 23.43 degrees to be parallel to the axis of the earth. Errr… Ok.

[Photographs by Yoshiro Masuda, via Dezeen.]