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of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. The coffers, like
tiles at the bar and ramen counter areas, are brightly colored in red
and yellow. The restaurant’s industrial feel is reinforced by
exposed ductwork and by large garage-style doors that allow the
space to open to the outside on nice days. The outdoor communal
table sits under a turquoise-colored steel frame that can be viewed
as a modern, abstracted version of a Japanese torii gate.
The Shay and Kyirisan

A block south of Atlantic Plumbing and Haikan, at the intersection
of 8th Street and Florida Avenue, NW, is the Shay, another new
mixed-use residential project by JBG Companies consisting of two
buildings on either side of a street (in this case, the east and west
sides of 8th Street). The project, which includes 245 rental apartments
on five floors above 28,000 square feet of retail space, was designed
by Seattle-based Miller Hull Partnership (MHP) in collaboration
with BKV Group, an architecture, engineering, interior design,
landscape architecture, and construction administration firm with
offices in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Washington, DC, which acted
as the architect of record. The contractor was Balfour Beatty.
A primary goal for the Shay, MHP says, was “to create
authentic and distinctive architecture that transitioned between
old and new in an emerging neighborhood.” Starting with a site
bisected by an alley and featuring a pair of historic buildings dating
to the 1870s, MHP says it “worked closely with the DC Office of
Planning and the Historic Preservation Review Board to consider a
series of design options enabling relocation of the alley and an
appropriate relationship to the historic structures. We achieved the
developer’s goal of maximizing the allowable floor area ratio Haikan restaurant. Photo © Farrah Skeiky
while simultaneously reaching the city’s goal of preserving and
enhancing the presence of the historic buildings.”
The project’s central organizing principal, BKV says, “is a
linear courtyard that connects both buildings across 8th Street
through grand stair portals on both sides of the 8th [Street]
façades. This nod to integrating the building into the urban fabric
is strengthened by the extra-wide sidewalks, which are envisioned
to be used by retailers and restaurants for enlivened pedestrian
use and activity.” The project’s industrial-style elements, MHP
says, “front the commercial street while metal-clad buildings detail
brick in a modern way as they step back toward adjacent historic
row houses.” Changes in materials and the division of the facades
into bays help to reduce the buildings’ apparent size, while
occasional changes in window alignments enliven the design.
Among the businesses located in The Shay is Kyirisan, an
Asian-French bistro that is another one of Shaw’s notable new eating
destinations. The 2,550-square-foot restaurant was designed by The Shay. Photo © Aboud Dweck
Griz Dwight, AIA, LEED AP, principal and owner of GrizForm
Design Architects, a firm located in the Naylor Court part of Shaw
that has designed many area restaurants. It was built by Battino
Contracting Solutions.
The restaurant’s chef and owner, Tim Ma, asked Dwight for
a design that would differentiate Kyirisan from other eateries.
Dwight had visited Ma’s other restaurants and enjoyed how the
chef folded ingredients and flavors together, so he responded with
a design that uses folded-plane wall and ceiling panels to create an
activated, almost prismatic canopy for the space. That feature is
then balanced by more conventionally elegant details, including a
series of framed wood panels that marches down one side of the

Kyirisan restaurant. Photo © Amber Frederiksen Photography