Tanning in the City by Studio Fragment.

Studio Fragment Tanning In The City Seoul Grooming Salons Photo Kimdonggyu | Yellowtrace

Studio Fragment has brought an element of relaxation to the bronzing experience, creating a tanning salon in Seoul that captures the familiarity of a home. Despite the fact ‘Tanning in the City’ being located in a busy urban context, interior spaces unfold with a sense of peace and quiet more akin to a remote location.

Studio Fragment explain that originally the site presented as an empty square. Their design aimed to differentiate areas from one another, creating a hierarchy of spatial conditions through different light qualities, and a shift in scale and material palette.

Upon entering, customers are met with a light welcoming space, with timber-clad ceiling bringing warmth to a creamy, otherwise neutral scheme. Brown leather cushions transform a concrete slab into a bench seat – the juxtaposition between the soft leather and the rigidity of the concrete creates a subtle tension we love.

Customers are then ushered into a long corridor where space begins to contract, marking a transition into a different zone. This zone feels much more like a dining room, a beautiful round table ensuring visions of clinical waiting rooms become a distant memory. Timber wraps the room, coating the ceiling, the walls, and an inbuilt open bookshelf. A stone sink sits semi-concealed behind mesh screens. A series of round mirrors poke their heads through the stone creating a quiet private moment within the open space.

Treatment rooms feel much more intimate than the rest of the scheme. Timber again coats the interior, however controlled dimmed lighting creates a deeper, darker finish that marks guest’s movement into a private zone. Soft white curtains break up the dominating timber, offering a moment of lightness within the darkroom.