Ben Mickus He has all the time gravitated to the artwork of doing, even from an early age. His first job was in a courtyard, the place he came upon the foundations of crafts. He determined to review the structure and lived in Copenhagen for a yr, touring broadly to Denmark. It was an fascinating second of exploration for Mickus, as a result of it skilled Danish design.
He noticed many buildings throughout his travels, however a Jacobsen Arne construction has left an enduring impression as a result of he embodies the idea of Whole muralsa complete murals. “At Aarhus Metropolis Corridor, Jacobsen designed the constructing, lighting, furnishings, signaling and even door hardware,” says Mickus. “I do not forget that my time I study these particulars whereas I discover the house and having the duality of my profession as an architect and product designer.”
Ben Mickus Photograph: Pleasure Coakley Studio
Mickus gained his grasp’s diploma from UCLA, and his first postgraduate place was with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, concerned within the transformation of Lincoln Middle in New York. Working carefully with Liz Diller and Charles Renfro, the mission was a formative for Mickus. He really understood that structure is a ship for expertise, and the interplay between customers and house needs to be fastidiously thought of.
In 2009, the designer launched Mickus initiatives in Brooklyn. Now, within the space of the Gulf of San Francisco, the studio produces furnishings, lighting and immersive installations. The group develops merchandise in collaboration with specialists and native crafts, with emphasis on the interplay of supplies.
One among Babyboop de Ron Arad meals is one in all Mickus’s favourite objects. A chunk that has been holding for a number of years, this 4 -compartment stainless-steel container has been made through the use of warmth to type fluid bulbs. It is simply an instance of how experimentation produces one thing distinctive. “There are a lot of of those strategies in my very own work and I typically take a look at Arad for inspiration,” notes Mickus.
At the moment, Ben Mickus joins us 5 Fridays!
Multi-sensory design is one in all my fascinations and can also be a most important factor of my apply. So, for my 5 decisions, I selected one for every of the senses.
Photograph: Ben Mickus
As an architect and designer, I’ve an extended record of locations I made an effort to go and see. However my most memorable visible inspiration got here from the intimate body of a designer’s studio … Alvar Aalto’s in Helsinki, Frank Lloyd Wright’s in Taliesin West and, most lately, Achille Castigloni in Milan. Seeing the sketches and fashions of a few of his most praised luminaires elucidated the design course of and supplied me a deeper appreciation for design.
Joseph Beuys, View set up, Dia: Beacon, Beacon, New York. © Joseph Beuys / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photograph: Invoice Jacobson Studio, New York, Courtesy Dia Artwork Basis, New York
Have you ever ever heard a cloth? That is one of the simplest ways to explain the feeling once you undergo this artwork set up, made up of stacked, sufficiently piled sheets to create a small maze and undergo it. You’ll actually really feel the suction sound from the air round you. The anechoic silence comes as a type of power saved within the stacks of felt and expresses the facility of acoustics as a sensory design factor.
Photograph: Ben Mickus
three. Style/odor: sugar cane cocktail, Hawaii
The style and particularly the odor could cause sturdy connections and recollections of the place. Additionally, a spot is extra memorable when meals or drink is a part of the expertise, activating extra senses, moderately than going and “see” it. In a latest journey to the massive island in Hawaii, I stayed at a historic plantation home positioned in a lush forest on the slope of a volcano. As if the placement alone weren’t memorable sufficient, the handmade cocktails, together with the reed of black sugar harvested on the property, burned the expertise in my reminiscence.
Photograph: Ben Mickus
I participated in a design exhibition referred to as Haptic, cleaned by the Japanese architect Kenya Hara, filled with examples about how the design can exceed the visible and within the tactile subject. Conventional wooden block sandals, designed by Shuhei Hasado, have left an enduring impression for a way they convey a singular sensation that may solely be imagined by taking a look at objects. This exhibition has aroused the concept of multi-sensory design, which I comply with largely of my very own work.
Photograph: Ben Mickus
I spend lots of time with my two kids, pursuing pursuits and attempting to grasp their curiosity. I’ve been to many kids’s museums, however among the best incubators for inventive and immersive installations is the Youngsters’s Museum in San Diego. The rope tower illustrated right here was a singular expertise of regularly reorienting your physique whereas transferring by way of a three-dimensional Spiderweb, with out having to fret about gravity. The inspiration I discovered on this and different reveals knowledgeable my very own work on the design of the kids’s playground.
Works by Ben Mickus:
Photograph: Ryan Gobuty
Hedron throughout
Hedron pendant is a 3D printed chandelier, impressed by nature and alien. Utilizing a hexagonal geometry, bioplastic materials, the shade is a collection of conical cell partitions, angle exactly to leap the sunshine twice from the interior LED supply to the marginally subtle mild popping out of the physique. The refined and striated floor texture creates a particular gradient on every floor. The Hedron pendant was influenced by the Danish designer Poul Henningsen, whose cautious evaluation of the reflection fashions knowledgeable the analysis for this factor, reinterpreting their work by parametric design, manufacturing strategies primarily based on CNC and renewable supplies. The Hedron pendant is a finalist for the IF 2025 design award.
Photograph: Robert Bean
Aid chair
The aid chair is a stratified ensemble of half of ″ thick sheets of wool -wool supported by the stainless-steel legs fashioned by break. The design goals to carve a bit of furnishings from a stable and quickly renewable materials, eliminating the upholstery and merchandise from unfriendly foam for the atmosphere. The contours minimize with water of water of every piece of felt outline the overall form. The cascade edges present an entire mannequin with a visible, tactile and acoustic impact. The chair of assist is within the everlasting assortment of the Nationwide Design Museum Cooper Hewitt in New York.
Photograph: Celso Rojas
Union throughout
The pendant of the Union is a playful composition of shades with pendant with domes, intersected and low with boolean operations to evoke the pure shapes present in cleaning soap bubbles and slot canyons. The aluminum hue with walnut speaker was created by 5 sequential manufacturing strategies, together with rotated aluminum, templates, welding, powder protection and CNC formation of the walnut. The LED supply hidden above the walnut speaker affords an enigmatic and oblique glow.
Photograph: Ryan Gobuty
Taylor Home – Alameda, California, USA
The Taylor Home is dramatically increasing and transforms a 1910 colonial home, with trendy design, sustainable pondering and thoroughly manufactured furnishings in place within the historic bark. The finished mission is finest described as a gradient. At one finish, the historic character of the unique inside of the home is restored. On the different finish, the ceilings are eliminated to create a three -storey ceiling atrium subsequent to an operable window wall, permitting pure mild and views to enter the home. Within the meantime, there are a collection of transition moments that function focal factors during which New Interleaves with Outdated, whereas creating sudden views and spatial connections from one room to a different. A matte, customized black metal chair serves as a focus in house. With open growths and steps of bent plates, the steps rise and hook up with a strolling by way of the higher quantity of the kitchen on the way in which to a completed attic house.
Photograph: Ryan Gobuty
Pendant with the open beam
The open beam pendant is a physique of linear LED mild, with mild bands positioned in a pair of aluminum beams bitten with CNC, which hides the sunshine supply, whatever the angle you take a look at. The empty house between the parallel bars, lined by picket blocks of arduous essence eliminated at every finish, permits the sunshine mirrored to emit outwards, making a speaker across the physique. The opening additionally features a view by way of the middle of the physique.
