PROJECTS 23 PROJECT 3 Salt Salon, Borough Market, London
A contemporary hairdressing salon and events space brand has added a new premises, located in London’s Borough Market
WORDS BY TONY ROCK
IMAGES BY HENRY WOIDE
PROJECT INFO Client
Salt Salon
Designer/architect Unknown Works
Size 192m2
The second London premises for Salt Salon, the contemporary hairdressing salon and events space brand, has been designed by architecture studio Unknown Works. The new, larger, Borough Market location joins the one in Dalston, and provides both a state-of-the-art salon and a vibrant cultural space Taking over three levels of a Victorian, listed brick storehouse, each space has a distinct hairdressing function, spatial and acoustic identity.
Set on the first floor is the Listening Room – a row of cutting stations and a reception area, which becomes a bar at night for events, frame a central gathering space that is defined by a pair of large-scale, galvanised steel loudspeakers incrementally formed using roboforming, a low- energy digital fabrication technology. The bespoke joinery and specialist metal roboforming was designed and developed by Unknown Works and fabricated using salvaged metal and shelves from Blythe House, the west London storage facility previously used by the V&A, Science Museum and British Museum. (Unknown Works had already used 225 of these same shelves to construct the Science Museum’s 800m2
Energy Revolution Gallery,
which opened in early 2024.) The speakers were developed in collaboration with Friendly Pressure, a high-fidelity start-up. The second floor houses an open-plan Cutting Floor – a cutting station that utilises a continuous mirror formed from stainless steel sheet, finished in a gradation, from buffed and mottled for privacy to mirror-polished for fine reflection and fidelity.
Suspended above, stainless steel Friendly Pressure Pickney loudspeakers anchor the room visually and sonically. The rear of the floor accommodates a staffroom, kitchen and social space, screened acoustically from the main salon with silicone screens.
The Colour Floor on the top level features a suspended, half-tonne sculptural mirror workstation hung from the original timber rafters. Crafted from ultra-bright stainless steel, it acts as both a reflective surface and a diffuser. Over time, this floor is intended to stain from dye use, recording the creative process in material patina. Mirrors throughout are polished to reflect but also refract, softening visual boundaries between guests. The sound system is embedded into the interior and is programmable, while bespoke modular chairs made from recycled foam absorb its low-frequency sound. Floor-to-ceiling
Completion date August 2025
KEY SUPPLIERS
Furniture Twentytwentyone
twentytwentyone.com
Lighting Churchill Electrical Solutions
suspended silicone panels dampen reflections and optimise clarity too.
‘This listed Victorian storehouse has been boldly reimagined as a space where sound operates as both material and medium,’ says Ben Hayes, director at Unknown Works. ‘Every element, from the bespoke loudspeakers to the acoustic furniture, has been precisely tuned to create an entirely new salon experience. It’s a fundamental rethinking of what these spaces can be.’
John Paul Scott, founder of Salt Salon, adds: ‘My ethos has always been to create the best hairdressing space for people to work in and visit, that caters for everyone. One of the things I love about hairdressing salons is that they are kind of impartial, open spaces. Anyone can come to Salt and be looked after and enjoy it. I’m a Londoner and have always had a bit of an obsession with Borough Market. You can feel the history there. It’s such an important place.
‘The brief for Salt Salon Borough was to bring all the things we already do – hair, sound, music, drinks – and elevate it to a completely new level. We were ambitious with it, and Unknown Works ran with that. I wanted to do something that would almost shock people – but which put Salt Salon on the map. Unknown Works played a huge part in achieving that with their forward-thinking design. They have been amazing and it’s been a great collaboration.’
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