Bangkok Joe
Washington, D.C.
Bangkok Joe’s, a 3,700 square foot contemporary American-Thai restaurant featuring an elevated dining room overlooking a bar, a lounge and a
dumpling bar. An adaptation of a bank in Georgetown in Washington D.C., along the Potomac.
Chef Aulie Orsinsiri was born in Thailand. The Bangkok Joe’s brief was to create a contemporary American inflected Thai restaurant.
JMA first developed a floor plan . The bar and dumpling bar became a stage visible from the raised dining room. The initial work included designs for a compact, efficient kitchen.
JMA’s designs include cast chofa sculptures at the booths; hand sculpted stair railings in the form of flames, leading to the dumplings bar; chairs and barstools accommodating to accommodate cross-legged diners; cantilevered booths with triangular Thai cushions; …light fixtures in the form of flowers andelephant trunks; A architectural palette of dark wood and creamy limestone from Thai temples, highlighted with saturated sunrise and silk and spice tones from the markets. Invented and made from scratch, like the chef’s dishes.
JMA completed their first project in Thailand in 1986, and memories influenced the design of Bangkok Joe’s public spaces…
Squiggly chofa-punctuated roofs
Levitating over humid hazy cubist shadows and wood-smoke,
lit obliquely by an early red-amber sun
Layers of light:
In a shadow cast by the jungle on the klongway to the palace
A market of slim boats, tippy-fat with baskets of colorful fruit,
Fades in an out between thick blankets of mist,
A bleached eruption of palatial spires and pastel arches and tiles in the high sun beyond…
A young mahout playing at the thick water’s edge with a young elephant, the end of his trunk like a pink mans hand gripping a harmonica …
Cool shadows
Strolling barefoot around a stone deity,
Admiring fat sculpted spirals of Buddha hair,
A telescoping lamp of silk suspended above a chair wide enough for half lotus… a halo of styled flames encircling a Thangka Buddha…
Traditional staggered wood framing at the American silk-baron’s home …
Credits
Interior Architecture / Interior Design: Jordan Mozer & Associates, Ltd
Architect of Record: Jeffrey W. Carloss, Architect
Lighting Design: Jordan Mozer & Associates, Ltd
Furniture Design: Jordan Mozer & Associates, Ltd
Artwork: Jordan Mozer & Associates, Ltd
Graphics: Jordan Mozer & Associates, Ltd
Kitchen / Bar Design: Jordan Mozer & Associates, Ltd
Product Design and Associated Manufacturing: Mozer Studios
JMA Team: Jordan Mozer, Jeff Carloss, Adam Lara and Matt Winter
Photography: Tom Rossiter