King Tide Fish & Shell

Located in Kimpton RiverPlace Hotel in Portland, Oregon, King Tide Fish & Shell offers the welcoming energy of a bar-lounge and a menu that ranges from no-fuss to fancy. GrizForm Design Architects was tasked with overhauling the existing bar and restaurant to create a modern, riverfront seafood spot inspired by the laid-back, comfortable fishing lodges of old.

Inspired by the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, GrizForm Design Architects developed a design concept that highlights these elements and effortlessly connects the interior space with the surrounding landscape. Richly stained woods, abundant texture, and a palette of deep greens, warm browns, and sea grey create a refined, lodge-inspired aesthetic that is elegant, but unpretentious. However, hard surfaces—a fireplace clad in tile, wood-framed windows, a granite bar, white oak plank flooring, charcoal grey ceiling beams, and a combination of banquette, high-top, and communal tables—are found throughout the restaurant. Consequently, the design team needed a way to create an acoustic environment that strikes the perfect balance between vibrant and intimate without disrupting the flow of the space.

The facade of the bulkhead above the bar features Kirei’s modular, acoustic Barcode Tiles, which serve as a modern and functional take on wood paneling of decades past. The Barcode style pairs both soft surfaces and varied thicknesses within a single tile to address sound control issues. The varying widths and depths allowed the design team to creatively convey texture and materiality while also adding more sound absorption and diffusion.

"We are always on the lookout for ways to work soft materials into our spaces without sacrificing the project’s aesthetic and for King Tide, we were very happy to find Kirei’s portfolio of products. The various widths and depths of their Barcode Tiles allowed us to create the texture that the restaurant needed while producing a functional sound deadening wall. The Kirei Barcode Tiles represent perfect form and function in one package and we are sure to use them again on many projects in the future." -Griz Dwight, Principal at Grizform Design Architects

Kirei’s Barcode Tiles add three-dimensional visual appeal, texture and sound absorption on the front side of the bulkhead above the bar while supporting the restaurant’s overarching design concept.