
Background and Context
Ko’Sin is the only restaurant to offer breakfast, lunch and dinner dining at Wild Horse Pass Resort. JCJ worked very closely with the Gila River Indian Tribe to understand and develop a design concept that included influences from both the Tribe’s native history, but also the local and indigenous materials.
Working closely from project inception with the Gila River Indian Tribe, both Sheraton and the general contractor found it unnecessary to invest a significant amount of time into value engineering. Early, defined budget restraints made it easier to team to work quickly in order to update the existing space.

Design Response
Certain steps were taken in order to minimize noise and disturbance to the hotel and restaurant while in operation. The goal was to work closely with the Tribe, Sheraton and the builder to develop a scheme where a portion of items were constructed off site and then shipped to the property. This provided the resort with the opportunity to minimize guest disturbance and cash flow disruption. A discreet entry and exist were created to get in and out of the kitchen for similar purposes. Due to the determined short deadline, materials and products were only selected if they had a lead time that worked within the desired outline of 16 weeks or less.
The design concept was based upon a piece of tribal artwork from within the community. This piece served as the focal point in the restaurant through the development of a glass wall mural that replicated the artwork in a large scale. Mesquite, an important tree to the tribe and indigenous to the area, was one of the main materials used in the new space. One of the tribe and Sheraton’s request was that the space provides more flexibility for their staff and the function and use of the space. The existing set up made it different for the team to set up a large weekend brunch buffet - something that Sheraton was hoping to provide for guests. Keeping each of these influencers in mind was only a small portion of the challenge - as each of the requests had to work within the Sheraton standards.

The design concept was based upon a piece of tribal artwork from within the community. This piece served as the focal point in the restaurant through the development of a glass wall mural that replicated the artwork in a large scale.
Results
Ko’Sin and Wild Horse Pass Casino & Resort are only a small collection of the work we have completed with the Gila River Indian tribe. JCJ has worked on multiple projects within the community including FF&E work, community buildings including their police station, Vee Quiva, and others. We continue to work with the on Wild Horse Pass campus due to our earn level of trust and respect for the tribal needs.
