MOD
Mod is a conceptual restaurant that blurs the boundary between front-of-house and back-of-house placing the kitchen not behind walls, but on full display against the building’s street-facing curtain wall. In a deliberate inversion of typical restaurant hierarchy, the kitchen becomes the protagonist: performative, transparent, and spatially central.
Two of the major interior elevations are fully glazed, turning the dining room into a fishbowl of activity and visibility. From the street, passersby encounter the choreography of cooking: a living backdrop to the dining experience inside. The kitchen’s exposed systems and raw concrete surfaces are not concealed but emphasized, creating a material throughline from back to front.
A bold, filigreed furniture wall rises against the back of the dining space: white, sculptural, and luminous. This moment of contrast floats against the dark surfaces behind it, offering a point of visual tension and anchoring the room in a kind of theatrical stillness. The lighting and material palette are carefully composed: black for depth and grounding, white for punctuation and clarity.
MOD
YEAR 2015
FAYETTEVILLE, ARKANSAS
Photos by Lucky McMahon
Construction by Red Five Construction
Engineering by GA Engineering
The dialogue between materials is deliberate: rough concrete meets delicate chandeliers; black industrial finishes extend from the kitchen into the dining space; elements usually hidden become celebrated. Mod invites the guest into the architecture of production, elevating the kitchen from service zone to spectacle, from backdrop to shared experience.