Fawn & Fox Salon uses an eight-foot oculus, curved walls, and garden views to turn an industrial shell into a fluid interior shaped by natural light.

Buffalo-based architecture and design practice Arch&Type has transformed a former warehouse near the historic H.H. Richardson Olmsted Campus into Fawn & Fox Salon, a contemporary interior shaped by natural light, organic geometry, and the building’s existing industrial character.

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

Warehouse Before
Photo credit: Seth Amman

Rather than treating the warehouse as a neutral container, the project retains its exposed structure and generous scale as a counterpoint to a softer architectural intervention. Curved walls, rounded openings, and carefully formed transitions introduce a more fluid language, creating a courtyard-like interior within the existing shell. The salon’s activities are organized around a luminous central space that changes throughout the day.

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

During Construction
Photo credit: Seth Amman

During Construction
Photo credit: Seth Amman

At the heart of the project is an eight-foot-wide skylight framed by a sculpted ceiling oculus. Opening directly toward the sky, the circular aperture allows sunlight to move across the interior as the day progresses. Shifting patterns of light and shadow travel across walls and floors, making the passage of time, changing weather, and seasonal variation visible within the space.

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

The geometry of the oculus also informs the salon’s spatial organization. Instead of a conventional sequence of enclosed rooms and corridors, curved walls guide movement between areas dedicated to styling, washing, gathering, and retreat. Visual connections are maintained throughout, while changes in scale and enclosure provide varying degrees of activity, privacy, and repose.

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

Large windows bring daylight deeper into the salon while connecting the interior to an adjacent garden. Vegetation, sky, and seasonal changes become part of the everyday experience, softening the boundary between the former warehouse and its surroundings. The relationship between interior and exterior is conceived as continuous, allowing the garden to contribute to the atmosphere and rhythm of the salon.

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

The project’s material and spatial character relies on the contrast between old and new. Existing trusses preserve the industrial identity and history of the building, while the newly introduced curves create a softer and more organic environment. One client likened the experience to inhabiting a Georgia O’Keeffe painting, reflecting the combination of enveloping forms, luminosity, and the raw structural elements retained above.

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

Art adds another layer to the interior. Buffalo artist Cassie Ott created a mural across five of the six bathroom surfaces, integrating color and movement directly into the architecture. Rather than functioning as an isolated decorative feature, the artwork forms part of the spatial experience while introducing a distinctly local artistic presence.

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

Photo credit: Andrea Wenglowskyj

Together, the architecture, artwork, garden, and changing daylight create a multisensory environment that balances the social nature of a salon with quieter moments of pause and retreat. The space is designed to evolve rather than reveal itself as a fixed composition, with sunlight and human movement continually altering its atmosphere.

During Construction
Photo credit: Seth Amman

During Construction
Photo credit: Seth Amman

Fawn & Fox demonstrates how adaptive reuse can extend beyond the functional transformation of an existing building. Through a focused series of architectural interventions, Arch&Type has converted an ordinary warehouse into an interior landscape in which structure, art, landscape, and daylight interact to shape the experience of everyday use.

Arch&Type

Arch&Type is a Buffalo-based architecture and design practice founded by architect Seth Amman. Working across adaptive reuse, residential, commercial, and civic projects, the studio approaches architecture as a process of uncovering possibilities already latent within a place. Its work is guided by curiosity, environmental awareness, material craft, and a commitment to creating spaces that deepen connections among people, buildings, and the natural world.