Metamorphosis in Time

Following the Shuran Wellness Space, E Studio has completed the second part of its full design for the Shuran brand: Shuran Skincare. The two sit side by side on the same block. The new space continues the theme of time, exploring how massage and beauty, two different businesses under one brand, can be both joined and distinguished.

Concept & Visual Identity

We brought the Shuran brand together and upgraded it into Shuran Living, a house that attends to people's needs more fully, under the single name SHURAN. By function, it divides into two parts:

Shuran Wellness, the "Time Cave", and Shuran Skincare, "Metamorphosis in Time".

The Time Cave is a space where time stands still, where you stop and release the stresses of body and mind. Metamorphosis in Time is a space where time runs backwards, a promise that skin and body can be renewed.

Transformed in Time

For the new brand identity we took the "U" from the name as a highly condensed visual sign that runs through both brand and space. The double "U" suggests a new "U" bursting out of the old one; layered curves and softly fading light give the brand an image that is professional, stylish and healing.

Interior & Space

The shopfront window is formed of free-flowing arcs, through which passers-by catch a glimpse of Shuran Skincare's mysterious aurora.

Entrance: A Gap in Time

Moving Through the Gaps of Time

To fit in as many treatment rooms as possible and keep circulation simple, a single time tunnel connects every room. At its far end a mysterious aurora appears, and the shifting colours of the light draw people out of reality, as if they were walking along a timeline.

Along the tunnel walls, the lighting marks time with a progression of "U" shapes that brighten and fade in an intelligent breathing rhythm, like a journey of transformation through time.

Cocoon / Metamorphosis

We think of the treatment rooms as "cocoons of time": spaces where the skin recovers and is transformed.

Fading light traces the metamorphosis of the "U". An intelligent lighting system lets the colour and brightness be set freely from a colour panel to suit each treatment. Everyone's experience is different, so every cocoon is different too: Shuran wants each guest to define their own.

Parallel Worlds

The make-up room sits in a narrow gap, where mirrors create two parallel spaces in dialogue with each other, and you meet your own transformed self.

The make-up room is a quiet, semi-open space. Tall walls form a symmetrical slot that makes each person the protagonist of the room, and the passage widens as you go, so the feeling keeps changing with every step.

This was a new commercial experiment. Asked for one brand across different kinds of service, we found what the two businesses share and ran the spatial idea of time through the whole brand, creating a new spatial identity that is unified yet never the same.

Client
Shuran

Location
Shenzhen, China

Area
210 m²

Completion Date
2021.03

Design Firm
E Studio

Lead Designer
Fan, Junjian
Zhou, Xuanzhuo

Design Team
Zhong, Jinghong
Wen, Lei

Brand Design
Wu, Qiwen

Photographer
Zhang, Chao