ILCSI Beauty Manufactury; sporaarchitects+terhalozat; Attila Korompay, Ádám Hatvani │BIG SEE Awards 2018

Ilcsi is a family run business that specialise in all natural products. The products are created using the power and richness of nature and contain natural ingredients which are sourced from a wide selection of plants. These products are sold not just in Hungary but throughout the world.

The site is located in the heart of Buda, in an over 100 years old civilian tenement house at the base of Buda castle. The architectural concept is built on the contrast between the brutality and raw beauty of the existing building, and the simple wood and illuminated plexiglass boxes. The relationship between the rustic, industrial materials and the simple, geometric shape of the “boxes” create a dynamic, yet harmonic world/atmosphere.
After getting rid of the unnecessary structures, plastering, fittings of the old, significantly deteriorated space, taking advantage of all the structural beauty of the old house, we ended up with a simple, elongated space with high ceilings. After thoughtful considerations, the location of the cosmetic space was designed to have a required intimacy, with a division from the rest of the building, yet by maintaining a hall-like character.

The function is related to beauty. First of all female beauty. Everything associated with beauty: hairdresser, massage, manicure, pedicure, facial mask, beauty treatments, and of course a ILCSI sample store. The complex function required a complex spatial placement, but within a simple concept. In the cleaned, rustic space the various treatment units, the function boxes are made from wood and plexiglass to create a contrast in a linear placement, forming a unified yet varied spatial composition like a mini building complex, house in a house. These function boxes are accessible on both sides.
Each function requires different levels of intimacy, which is easy to achieve by this design principle, a more open hair dressing salon as well as a closed, more private massage room.

The sun sweeps the front façade of the salon in the afternoon from the direction of Vérmező.
The sun seamlessly flows into the building through the large glass surfaces. Through the bridge over the sunken indoor garden we arrive to the reception area, the ILCSI showroom. The garden features the plants used by ILCSI. We arrive in a spacious salon, this is where the beauty care begins, the hidden world, where people leave physically and mentally rejuvenated.