BAR JANUS

JANUS is a whisky and cocktail bar with a social aspect. Our client had two demands: one was that the audience should not interpret this place according to the literal meaning of JANUS or their traditional concepts, and the other was that the audience should have more than two different spatial experiences in this place. These different spatial experiences combine as an integral whole rather than to be independent ones.

When I first went to the site for mapping, I was very excited and surprised by the light on the second floor, when the sunlight was pouring down from the daylight opening. My first reaction was that the place already has distinctive features that can bring audiences different moods, and experiences in the daytime and night-time. I then began to conceptualise how to create two or more different atmospheres in the space. Creating is the art of making a meaningful whole out of individual components, but of course, this is based on a floor plan.

According to the operational function of the project, the first floor is the supporting space and the second floor is the main venue. The first floor is loose, open, relaxed which serves coffee. The seating is relatively spacious. Bar counter and loose seating area on the second floor is different, more compact but not crowded. The sense of distance between people familiar or unfamiliar is more subtle. We hope more conversation and stories can happen there.

I began to imagine the independence and connection between the first and second floors and focus on the atmosphere of the transition between these two floors. This transition place is equally paradoxical and harmonious, but more dim. As we go upwards, the eye gradually gets used to the change of light, and when we reach the second floor, it transforms into a kind of intimate and soft place, interspersed with the smell of liquor.