North Gate Salon

Nordic Bros. Design Community transformed a tiny space in Seoul into a shop that is also a place for everyday conversation with the neighborhood, focused on harmony and balance.

The North Gate Salon is a shop in Yeonhee-dong, Seoul, completed by Nordic Bros. Design Community.

The space puts together business and everyday conversation with the neighborhood.

Most of all, the designer was fascinated by the tiny space at the first meeting with the North Gate Salon, and started the project hoping to solve the limitations or inconveniences of the space. The North Gate Salon was first designed on pleasant imagination and boundary of unreality, so that it might draw humor of that region. However, the project couldn’t overcome the building’s limit.

North Gate Salon, Seodaemun-gu Seoul,South Korea — Nordic Bros. Design Community, North Gate Salon, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Due to the characteristics of the building exterior where only the minimal renovation is allowed, it concentrated on the windows and doors and focused on harmony and balance with the interior adjusting the location, size, and form while maintaining the shape of the previous structure.

The space on the two floors (width 6.8m x height 2.3m) is completed around the client’s demand such as the easily accessible stairs, separation between storage space and selling space, convenient toilet, and separated work space and the stairs where the designer’s desire is added.