Ben Mickus has all the time gravitated to the artwork of constructing, even from an early age. His first job was in a lumber yard, the place he discovered the basics of expertise. He determined to review structure and lived in Copenhagen for a 12 months, touring extensively all through Denmark. It was an thrilling time of exploration for Mickus as he skilled Danish design.
He considered many buildings throughout his travels, however one construction by Arne Jacobsen left a long-lasting impression, as a result of it embodies the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, a complete murals. “On the Aarhus Metropolis Corridor Jacobsen designed the constructing, the lighting, the furnishings, the signage, and even the door {hardware},” says Mickus. “I keep in mind my time analyzing these particulars whereas exploring the area, and having the duality of my profession as an architect and product designer come into focus.”
Ben Mickus Picture: Pleasure Coakley Studio
Mickus earned his grasp’s in structure from UCLA, and his first post-graduate diploma place was with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, concerned within the transformation of Lincoln Middle in New York Metropolis. Working carefully with Liz Diller and Charles Renfro, the mission was a formative one for Mickus. He actually understood that structure is a vessel for expertise, and the interplay between customers and the area needs to be rigorously thought of.
In 2009, the designer launched Mickus Initiatives in Brooklyn. Now within the San Francisco Bay Space, the studio produces furnishings, lighting, and immersive installations. The crew develops merchandise in collaboration with specialists and native craftsmen, with an emphasis on the interaction of supplies.
A Babyboop dish by Ron Arad is considered one of Mickus’ favourite objects. A chunk he has owned for a few years, this four-compartment stainless-steel container was made by utilizing warmth to type fluid bulbous shapes. It is only one instance of how experimentation produces one thing distinctive. “I observe many of those strategies in my very own work, and sometimes look to Arad for inspiration,” Mickus notes.
Right this moment, Ben Mickus joins us for Friday 5!
Multi-sensory design is considered one of my fascinations and can be a core tenet of my follow. So for my 5 picks, I’ve chosen one for every of the senses.
Picture: Ben Mickus
As an architect and designer, I’ve an extended checklist of locations that I’ve made an effort to go and see. However my most memorable visible inspirations have come from the intimate setting of a designer’s studio… Alvar Aalto’s in Helsinki, Frank Lloyd Wright’s in Taliesin West, and most not too long ago, Achille Castiglioni’s in Milan. Seeing the sketches and maquettes of a few of his most lauded lighting fixtures elucidated the design course of, and gave me a deeper appreciation for the design.
Joseph Beuys, set up view, Dia:Beacon, Beacon, New York. © Joseph Beuys / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Picture: Invoice Jacobson Studio, New York, courtesy Dia Artwork Basis, New York
Have you ever ever “heard” a cloth? That is the easiest way to explain the feeling when strolling via this artwork set up comprised of stacked felt sheets, piled excessive sufficient to create a small labyrinth and stroll via it. You’ll actually really feel the sound sucked out of the air round you. The anechoic silence comes throughout as a type of vitality saved within the felt stacks, and expresses the ability of acoustics as a sensory design ingredient.
Picture: Ben Mickus
3. Style/Scent: Sugar Cane Cocktail, Hawaii
Style and particularly scent can elicit sturdy connections and recollections of place. Likewise, a spot is extra memorable when meals or drink are a part of the expertise, activating a number of senses, relatively than simply passing via and “seeing” it. On a latest journey to the Huge Island of Hawaii, I stayed at a historic plantation home set in a lush forest on the slope of a volcano. As if the placement alone wasn’t memorable sufficient, the handmade cocktails together with black sugar cane harvested on the property, burnished the expertise in my reminiscence extra deeply.
Picture: Ben Mickus
I attended a design exhibition known as Haptic, curated by Japanese architect Kenya Hara, crammed with examples of how design can transcend the visible and into the tactile area. The standard wooden block sandals, designed by Shuhei Hasado, left a long-lasting impression for the way in which they convey a novel sensation that one can think about simply by wanting on the objects. This exhibition sparked the thought of multi-sensory design, which I pursue in a lot of my very own work.
Picture: Ben Mickus
I spend quite a lot of time with my two youngsters, following their pursuits and attempting to know their curiosity. We’ve been to many youngsters’s museums, however among the finest incubators for inventive and immersive installations is the San Diego Kids’s Museum. The rope tower pictured right here was a novel expertise of continually reorienting your physique as you progress via a three-d spiderweb, with out even needing to fret about gravity. The inspiration I’ve discovered on this and different reveals has knowledgeable my very own work on Kids’s play area design.
Works by Ben Mickus:
Picture: Ryan Gobuty
Hedron Pendant
The Hedron Pendant is a 3d-printed chandelier, impressed by nature and the extraterrestrial. Utilizing hexagonal geometry, bioplastic materials, the shade is an array of tapered cell partitions, exactly angled to bounce gentle twice from the inner LED supply to the softly subtle gentle exiting the fixture. The delicate, striated floor texture creates a particular gradient throughout every floor. The Hedron Pendant was influenced by Danish designer Poul Henningsen, whose cautious evaluation of reflection patterns knowledgeable the analysis for this fixture, whereas reinterpreting his work via parametric design, CNC-based fabrication strategies and renewable supplies. The Hedron Pendant is a finalist for the 2025 IF Design Award.
Picture: Robert Bean
Aid Chair
The Aid Chair is a layered meeting of 1/2″ thick sheets of wool felt supported by break-formed stainless-steel legs. The design goals to sculpt a bit of furnishings from a stable and quickly renewable materials, eliminating upholstery and environmentally unfriendly foam merchandise. The waterjet-cut contours of every piece of felt outline the general type. The cascading edges manifest an integral sample with a visible, tactile and acoustic impact. The Aid Chair is within the Everlasting Assortment of the Cooper Hewitt Nationwide Design Museum in New York.
Picture: Celso Rojas
Union Pendant
The union pendant is a playful composition of dome pendant shades, intersected and subtracted with boolean operations to evoke the pure kinds present in cleaning soap bubbles and slot canyons. The aluminum shade with walnut diffuser was created via 5 sequential fabrication strategies, together with spun aluminum, template chopping, welding, powder coating, and CNC-shaping the walnut. The LED supply hid on prime of the walnut diffuser offers an enigmatic and oblique glow.
Picture: Ryan Gobuty
Taylor Home – Alameda, California, USA
The Taylor home dramatically expands and transforms a 1910 colonial home, with fashionable design, sustainable considering and custom-fabricated furnishings rigorously inserted throughout the historic shell. The completed mission is finest described as a gradient. On one finish, the historic character of the unique home inside is restored. On the different finish, ceilings are eradicated to create a 3-story cathedral-ceiling atrium beside a wall of operable home windows, permitting pure gentle and views to penetrate during the home. In between are a collection of transitional moments serving as focal factors the place new interleaves with outdated, whereas creating surprising views and spatial connections from one room to the subsequent. A custom-fabricated a matte black metal ships-ladder serves as the focus throughout the area. With open risers and bent-plate treads, the stair rises and connects to a catwalk which soars via the higher quantity of the kitchen on the way in which to a completed attic area above.
Picture: Ryan Gobuty
Open Beam Pendant
The Open Beam Pendant is a linear LED gentle fixture, with luminous strips positioned inside a pair of CNC-milled aluminum beams, concealing the sunshine supply regardless of which angle you take a look at it. The void area between the parallel bars, capped by CNC-sculpted hardwood blocks at every finish, permits mirrored gentle to emanate outward, making a diffuser glow throughout the fixture. The opening additionally frames a view via the middle of the fixture.
