Although BIBU is promoted as a “pet store” it is really much more. It is an entire pet-care and pet-pampering environment, strategically answering the call of the younger generations to provide the services and products their pampered pets need. In addition to retailing pets, pet supplies and food, BIBU includes also a veterinary clinic and hospital, and facilities for pet boarding, spa, grooming and training.

The designers of the two-level, 630 square-metre (6,781 sq. ft) shop are Guangchou-based One Fine Day Studio & Partners, a (ofD), an architecture and design firm established in 2013.

Lead architect Jump Lee with design team members Chun-jie He and Yong-jie Lao drew inspiration for the upscale project from American filmmaker Stan Kubric’s iconic 1968 sci-fi film 2001:A Space Odyssey.

The façade of the store that is located in the high-end condo building, Gaode Mansion, is a happy and friendly bright blue square that immediately attracts attention. With its rounded openings it resembles a 1950s appliance, perhaps a radio, fridge or TV. It also heralds the retro milieu of the interior.

On the ground floor, right at the entrance, ofD placed a social area, a café called DOPPIO by La Moitié where the Space Odyssey-theme is the most obvious. The white tiled floor, the futuristic furniture pieces placed far from each other, and the overall feel of space, light and whiteness are all part of this retrofuturist impression, the future of the past. The design firm has worked with La Moitié before, so the connection with that brand came naturally.

The second-floor includes the pet hospital and clinic where cleanliness is the main requirement. But even there, in the general whiteness, the Space Odyssey-theme is palpable in the, muted colours, smoky metal and abundance of lighting fixtures.

The two-level space, although divided clearly into sections that separate the various services, is connected by an open atrium that gives the viewpoint from which one can really appreciate yet another aspect of the Space Odyssey theme, the rounded forms of the project.

From the spiralling stairs to partitions, lighting fixtures and windows, everything is rounded. This also includes all corners as there are no sharp angles in BIBU, which of course is also good for the guests, the pampered pets.

The overall colour scheme is muted white with forest green and robin’s-egg blue as accents and with white tiles and dark wooden panels covering the floors.

The Gaode Mansion is located in the core area of Guangzhou, next to the K11 Art Mall and the International Financial Centre. Tuija Seipell

Images by yuuuunstudio

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The recently reopened Municipal Baths of Strasbourg really must be addressed as ‘Baths.’ It would not seem right to call the complex just simply a swimming facility or an aquatic, wellness or community centre. It is all of these but  its grand architecture and interior design, both now elegantly restored by the Paris and Geneve-based Chatillon Architectes, demand that the historic Baths continue to be called Baths even today.

Built by the German city planner, painter and architect Fritz Beblo in 1905-1908, the swimming pools and thermal baths complex was considered one of his finest buildings anywhere. Beblo was at the time the head of the city’s building department and a key figure in the development of the city’s Neustadt (new town) area during the German Empire (1870-1918).

Bebo’s progressive team took a bold, artistic and holistic approach, designing and controlling absolutely everything from building materials to the door handles. And although the building’s purpose was functional – winter swimming and hygiene were the city’s goals at the time – many of the details were purely decorative. The material selection was eclectic and the style is mixed. There are references to Jugendstil but also to Baroque, Renaissance and even Japanese styles.

Jugendstil was the German counterpart of Art Nouveau. The followers of the movement rebelled against the industrial age of machinery and the tall, boxy and featureless buildings of the era by infusing their art, design and architecture with softer forms and decorative motifs that often suggested the natural world.

The 23-million-Euro reconstruction and renovation of the Baths started in 2018 and culminated in the grand re-opening earlier this month. The project had to meet several objectives: to upgrade the buildings and add new safety, accessibility and energy-efficiency features; to enhance the existing features; to restore characteristics and details that had been altered over the year; and finally, to add new facilities to meet current and future needs.

In addition to the original pools, the facility now includes an outdoor pool, mineral baths, jacuzzis, exercise and yoga studios and many other health, wellness and exercise spaces.

Chatillon Architectes is known globally for its expertise in redevelopment and renovation of heritage and historic building including the renovation of the Carnavalet Museum in Paris in association with Snøhetta and Agence NC (Nathalie Crinière) Chatillon Architectes founder, François Chatillon, is also the Chief Architect of France’s historic monuments and the firm is currently working on, for example, on the restoration of the Grand Palais and the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

With its 1005-year-old Cathedral and colourful history, Strasbourg is today one of the four main seats of the European Union, in addition to Brussels, Luxembourg and Frankfurt. Strasbourg is located at the border with Germany in the historic region of Alsace. The river Rhine forms the border with Germany. Strasbourg’s historic city centre (Grande Ile) was classified as an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988 and its newer part, Neustadt, was added to the classification in 2017.  Tuija Seipell

Images Cyrille Weiner

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The need to upgrade the design of medical and dental offices has been talked and written about for at least three decades. Yet real change has not taken place. Certainly not in the non-luxury world. From the customer perspective, most are still boring, bland and decidedly “medical.” Yes, we understand the need for hygiene and procedural and protocols and requirements, but is there a law about everything needing to be boring and slightly scary-looking as well?

The medical world is traditional and conservative. Perhaps the need to be, and appear to be, trustworthy and reliable has been confused with boring? We have encountered this attitude many times and it is evidenced, for example, in the design of new tools and devices as well. They evoke anxiety and fear, rather than comfort and healing.

We are not advocating frivolity here or silliness but instead we look for a bit of true customer-focus, comfort, convenience and visual pleasure. We are looking for design that reflects wellness rather than sickness, comfort rather than fear.

In the Ruixiang Dental Clinic, occupying a street-front location in the prosperous city of Rui’an in Wenzhou City, China, Chinese design firm JACKY.W Design has achieved some of what we are looking for. The lightness and friendliness of the clinic creates a resemblance to a spa more than to a medical facility.

The smart use of features such as soft lighting, light wood and rounded corners, creates a comforting ambiance that is further enhanced with the natural-tone furnishings and home-like accents, such as small natural-wood side tables and plants. However, the goal is not to be homey, rather the focus is on comfort and ease.

The 194 square-metre (2,088 sq. ft) space includes a large reception and waiting area, four treatment rooms, a consulting room and six functional rooms that include the disinfection room and the equipment room. We do not see any evidence that this design direction would somehow undermine the professionalism and expertise of the doctors and expert staff working at the clinic. We hope to see more of this and soon. Tuija Seipell

Images WYAP

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Those endless rows of black equipment. The overall feel of a gym. We are hoping that one day, someone will disrupt this segment and decide that not all exercise equipment has to look like oil-rig machinery channelling destruction and torture, not health and well-being.

Maybe we are the only humans whose idea of health and fitness doesn’t include torture or brutalist leanings. And yes, we hear those of you who’d like to send us back to our spas and wellness studios and stop whining. We will gladly go. But before we do, we feel there must be a middle ground somewhere. Even if we are, on occasion, ready to push and demand a bit more of ourselves than the tree pose, does it have to be in a cavern of doom? And does all of the equipment have to look so ugly? And no, we are not talking about feminine and masculine here. We are talking about balance and appeal.

This is what we were contemplating when we ran, once again, across the images of the Warehouse Gym located on the second floor of the Springs Souk shopping mall in Dubai. This 1,200 square-metre (12,916 sq.ft) gym is part of a chain of eight Warehouse Gyms in the Emirates, each with its own vibe and its own offering of services.

As adverse as we are to excessive striving, we feel there is merit in this design completed by Dubai and Montreal, Canada-based VSHD Design founded by interior architect Rania Mahmoud Hamed.

We do like the idea of employing just a few simple design components – round shape, subtle lighting, mirrors and orange-red accents – and sticking to them. We also love that all those features help lean the experience a bit further away from the black abyss of sweat and suffering and closer to fun and enjoyment. We also love the shower and change-room area with its streamlined, minimalist tiling, black modern fixtures, wood-trimmed doors and wood seating. This is where we see some of that balance. These auxiliary spaces offer a calm atmosphere and a spa-like feel.

However, the description of the gym on the shopping mall website clearly states that the purpose of the design concept was to entice the patrons to sweat to loud music surrounded by bright colours and a sense of a night-club-like buzz. It also refers to amplified energy and no rest, so their immediate target clientele clearly needs this. But there is apparently also a yoga studio, so perhaps there is a mat for us as well.

Overall, we really love the flexible lighting program that follows the trend that has moved gym-lighting from starkly neon-lit spaces to ambient lighting that can be modified, re-focused and dimmed, and that functions as a clear design element. We also like the clever use of round mirrors that multiply the reflections in each other. Tuija Seipell

Images: Oculis Project /V2com 

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AHC Waterful Desert Spa is the new flagship location and a renewed spa brand of the Korean beauty brand AHC.

The soft-hued, open and airy spa provides an antidote to the endless hustle of the 9.8-million-inhabitant city’s Gangnam (Gangnam-gu – South of the River) district that is the capital’s modern high-end, high-energy centre with its skyscrapers, nightclubs and shopping.

Local design firm FLYmingo  created the calm and pleasing atmosphere using a smartly edited set of visual effects. FLYmingo directors, Kim Junho and Hwang Jiyeon with team members Oh Hwayoung, Lee Suji and Kim Minji selected a soothing colour palette of white accented with warm off-whites and sand-tones, and a set of gentle curving elements that direct the eye and create a sense of flow.

Located by the Han River, Seoul has an intimate link with flowing water, so the central winding water-feature is a natural. The soft, curving form repeats gently in the arched doorways and windows and in the shapes of the furniture, mirrors and lighting.

Lush plants add a touch of outdoors and provide an accent colour. The lovely sail-like awning stretching over the terrace projects once again the lightness and breezy calm expressed so beautifully in the entire 330 square-metre (3,552 sq.ft) spa.

The goal of the design team was to provide a place for a spacation for the wary pandemic-stressed urbanites, a relaxing and calming break from the constant noise and crowds of the city. And they have more than succeeded. It really does feel impossible to believe that this is located right in the middle of a super-busy metropolis and not in a beach-front hotel.

Carver Korea https://www.ahc.co.kr/ and the AHC product line were originally established in 1999 by as a skincare product brand. It has since expanded from a fairly exclusive product line to a mass-appeal brand, and its Play Zone beauty salon/spa/shops provide not just the products but also skincare, spa, makeup, nail and hair treatments. In 2017, Carver Korea became part of the Unilever group of companies. Tuija Seipell

Images Yongjoon Choi

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Last year, after having been in business for more than 50 years, the New Zealand fitness powerhouse Les Mills completed the design of an additional facility across from its flagship location on Victoria Street in Auckland City.

The addition is a thoroughly re-configured industrial building that now houses three new Les Mills studios. These studios and the fitness programs offered in them have been designed to meet the expectations of the Gen Z and Millennial demographics.

Based on Les Mills own global research these age groups drive most of fitness-club spending. Les Mills research also indicates that the mean age of fitness club members is 36.4 and the mean age of those who join fitness clubs is 30.6.

The vibe at the new studios is masculine and dark, all business and hard work. The facility was designed by Auckland-based Monk Mackenzie and interior designers, Rufus Knight Associates together with the branding team at Alt Group.

The theatrical drama of the industrial building and the goal-focused fitness regimes are expressed and enhanced in the studios with cinema-quality audio visual aids. For example, The Trip, a new 45-minute cycle experience, features a tiered theatre design, a huge screen and purpose-created videos broadcast with five projectors.

The other two new Les Mills programmes for which this space is custom-designed are Ceremony, a 45-minute functional training workout, and Conquer, a complete boxing workout.

With the hard, functional training regimes and focused workouts that are a growing trend according to Les Mills research, comes facility wear and tear. For this reason, the designers and the innovation team at Les Mills had to implement only ideas and design components that would withstand the constant, hard use.

The need for immersive experiences, the growing trend of functional training, and the desire to create a visually distinctive brand, made the process more difficult but also resulted in a more cohesive experience. The need to balance several strong needs has visibly helped focus the brand and the interiors, and forced an outcome that is bold and clear.

The Victoria Street facility is a test facility for the three new functional fitness programs and the new space design. Both will be gradually rolled out in other Les Mills locations in New Zealand.  Tuija Seipell.

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Clubs offering various forms of health and wellness options have been popping up everywhere, each claiming to be more unique and special than the ones preceding. Whatever you believe in, you are sure to find a club for that, especially in bigger cities.

Going to the gym can mean so many things now, not just the hard-driving exercise and scary-looking equipment. Wellness is a term that can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways but clubs offering it feature calming and elegant designer surroundings that include infrared saunas, steam rooms, meditation rooms and educational areas where everything from spa treatments, yoga, oxygen therapy, cryotherapy, massage and nutritional advice can be enjoyed for a monthly membership fee.

We Work’s Rise By We, New York-based The Well and Chillhouse and many others are capitalizing on the lifestyle change that puts wellness and balance ahead of just mere fitness.

In addition to specialized wellness clubs, hotels such as W Hotels, Ritz-Carlton, Shangri-La and many others have also opened wellness clubs in some of their hotel sub-brands.

In West Hollywood, the recent opening of Remedy Place attracted much media attention, not just for its PR claims of being the first “social wellness club” but also for its darker-toned interior that differs from both the sweaty industrial look of fitness clubs and the dreamy spa vibes of typical wellness clubs.

Los Angeles-based interior design firm Bells + Whistles was in charge of creating the moody environment for the 4,000 square-foot (371 sq. metre) space.

The club includes three lounges of which one is outdoors, a bar offering healthy local food and non-alcoholic drinks, a plunge pool, three saunas, a meditation room, 18 treatment rooms and a spacious change area.

Dark furnishings include custom-upholstered velvet loungers and leather arm chairs, with materials such as dark slatted wood screens, natural stone, smoked glass and concrete adding to the overall restrained and subtle darkness. Vibrant greenery and the elegant lighting scheme ensure that the overall vibe is smartly muted rather than gloomy. Tuija Seipell

Photography: Madeline Jean

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Aqua Health Clinic is located in Beijing’s fashionable Sanlitun area known for its fashionable restaurants, nightlife and shopping that includes international brand-name stores such as Apple, Armani and Rolex.

The clinic combines traditional Chinese medicine with modern approaches. It uses today’s cosmetic spa technologies and combines them with the ancient traditions to design personalized treatments to relieve physical and psychological fatigue.

For the design team at Waterfrom Design the task was to create today’s update of the smelly and dark ancient medicine environment and bring it, combined with a modern spa vibe, to a new, brighter and cleaner era.

However, the traditions and visual cues of the ancient medicine are not hidden. Instead they are displayed in artistic and museum-like ways through a concept the designers call Exhibition of Frozen Time. For example, there is a massive glass-encased wall installation that displays almost 100 different Chinese medicine plant and mineral specimens. Touches of Chinese writing, symbols of nature and earthy materials are juxtaposed with harder, modern components.

The 280 square-metre (3,013 sq. ft) space includes separate areas for reception, display, waiting, skin examination, facial care, hair care, body care, TCH clinic and bar, plus staff area and storage. The overall atmosphere is ethereal and light with the intention of helping the clients detach and slow down and yield to the cues provided for their senses. Floor-to-ceiling windows and a minimalist colour palette add to the sense of openness and calm.

The tea bar area uses six layers and tens of thousands of acrylic rods in different shades of blue specifically lit to evoke the rhythm of mountains, rain and fog.

Waterfrom Design was established in 2008 in Taipei by Nic Lee who is a graduate of the Pratt Institute in New York. Waterfrom has offices in Taipei, Taiwan, and Shanghai, China.  Tuija Seipell.

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It is clearly the coming-of-age season for co-working spaces, private business clubs and specialized health clubs. We are seeing grown-up options in all three categories, ranging from elegant and glamorous, to minimalist and highly niche.

The WELL, just opened in Flatiron in New York, is definitely not a co-working space or a business club. Instead, it is most decidedly an example of the new wave of grown-up membership-based private health clubs. Very specific. Very niche. And very chic.

If you took the old English men’s club with its leather chairs, dark wood paneling and cigar smoke and created a club that in many ways serves the same purpose as those men’s clubs but is their polar opposite, you’d come up with The WELL.

We imagine founders Rebecca Parekh (Former COO for Deepak Chopra and a Deutche Bank executive), Sarrah Hallock (Former Marketing Executive at Vitamin Water, Bai and WTRMLN Water) and Kane Sarhan (former Head of Brand for Starwood Capital Group and 1 Hotels) thinking in those terms.

But in reality they simply created a health and wellness club that they themselves wanted and the result is the 18,000 square-foot (1,672 sq. metres) club that claims to offer “the best in-class, integrated and highly personalized plans for each of its members.”

This is a club focusing on wellness, combining “the science of Western medicine and wisdom of Eastern healing.” There are specialists in all modalities of medicine, from functional to Ayurveda, sports medicine to Chinese medicine.

In fact, Parekh had been looking for this type of club in her own life as early as 2009. She was, like so many others, trying to balance a hectic career with the rest of her life and finding, just like so many others, the different health and wellness-related PR and information both conflicting and thoroughly confusing.

A destination spa in Sedona, Arizona inspired her to imagine an urban version of a destination spa, where you can leave your stresses, aches and pains in the hands of specialists who have taken the time to understand your specific needs and preferences.

The other two founders had had similar experiences and together, the team of three with truly impressive business backgrounds decided to bring the holistic spa experience to the super-hectic New York professionals.

The design of the predominantly white spa is by the Miami, Florida-based Rose Ink Workshop. Curves, natural wood and soft hues create an airy and luxurious environment that manages to feel completely un-clinical with lavender being a more likely scent than disinfectant.

In addition to the actual spa and its many different treatment and wellness facilities, the concept includes classes, training, a library and a retail shop.

A restaurant, THE WELL Kitchen & Table, will also open in the complex in October. Not surprisingly, it will focus on seasonal, local and organic offerings, from the team behind Cafe Clover and Clover Grocery. Also not surprisingly, the ambition of the financially well-backed The WELL team is to extend the urban brand into a global player in the otherwise already crowded wellness retreat space. Tuija Seipell.

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Is Mia Yoga in Moscow the beginning of a new minty-green period for Harry Nuriev, the reigning monarch of Instagrammable design? 

Indeed, we are all drawn to the New York and Moscow-based artist, designer and architect’s ever-changing colour preferences and bold choices.

Individual pieces of furniture, architectural environments, and most recently, even fashion. It seems that this spring, images of Nuriev’s work have popped up everywhere.

However, right alongside the shocking colours and re-imagined scavenged pieces, the 34-year old and his Studio Crosby have also produced balanced, subdued and elegant interiors, such as Mia Yoga in Moscow.

In Nuriev’s work, we are seeing a new kind of minimalistic approach where a singular, sometimes bright and sometimes subdued, colour directs and inspires, challenges and expresses whatever it is that the designer is going for in each case.

Perhaps the bright work is the more Instagrammable, but it is his other work that creates lasting impressions and really showcases his talent. 

About Mia, Nuriev’s office tells The Cool Hunter, he says that “It is very fresh, it is tuning not only into the spiritual and physical, but also to the aesthetic practice.”

He has treated the interior with a light hand with outlines and piping reigning in the overall minty hue that evokes freshness and calm and doesn’t attempt to draw attention to itself.

But in his student years in Moscow, Nuriev was, not surprisingly, all black. Then came the long pink period that started around 2014, and was highlighted at Sight Unseen OFFSITE in 2016. His eclectic Williamsburg apartment is famously bright blue (with strong pink accents).

This spring, it was purple, headlined by a Chewbacca-esque shaggy chair in neon purple and featured in Opening Ceremony’s SoHo store in New York.

Nuriev’s clients include ASICS, Boston Consulting Group, Cushman & Wakefield, Gorky Park and Nike. There is no doubt we will be seeing a lot more of his work in the decades to come. Tuija Seipell.

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