F5: Ben Mickus on a Sugar Cane Cocktail, an Exhibition in Japan + More

Ben Mickus has always gravitated to the art of making, even from an early age. His first job was in a lumber yard, where he learned the fundamentals of craftsmanship. He decided to study architecture and lived in Copenhagen for a year, traveling extensively throughout Denmark. It was an exciting time of exploration for Mickus as he experienced Danish design.

He viewed many buildings during his travels, but one structure by Arne Jacobsen left a lasting impression, because it embodies the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art. “At the Aarhus City Hall Jacobsen designed the building, the lighting, the furniture, the signage, and even the door hardware,” says Mickus. “I remember my time examining those details while exploring the space, and having the duality of my career as an architect and product designer come into focus.”

Ben Mickus \\\ Photo: Joy Coakley Studio

Mickus earned his master’s in architecture from UCLA, and his first post-graduate degree position was with Diller Scofidio + Renfro, involved in the transformation of Lincoln Center in New York City. Working closely with Liz Diller and Charles Renfro, the project was a formative one for Mickus. He truly understood that architecture is a vessel for experience, and the interaction between users and the space has to be carefully considered.

In 2009, the designer launched Mickus Projects in Brooklyn. Now in the San Francisco Bay Area, the studio produces furniture, lighting, and immersive installations. The team develops products in collaboration with specialists and local craftsmen, with an emphasis on the interplay of materials.

A Babyboop dish by Ron Arad is one of Mickus’ favorite items. A piece he has owned for many years, this four-compartment stainless steel container was made by using heat to form fluid bulbous shapes. It is just one example of how experimentation produces something unique. “I follow many of these methods in my own work, and often look to Arad for inspiration,” Mickus notes.

Today, Ben Mickus joins us for Friday Five!

Multi-sensory design is one of my fascinations and is also a core tenet of my practice. So for my five picks, I’ve chosen one for each of the senses.

Photo: Ben Mickus

1. See: Achille Castiglioni Studio, Milan

As an architect and designer, I have a long list of places that I have made an effort to go and see. But my most memorable visual 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 recently, Achille Castiglioni’s in Milan. Seeing the sketches and maquettes of some of his most lauded light fixtures elucidated the design process, and gave me a deeper appreciation for the design.

Joseph Beuys, installation view, Dia:Beacon, Beacon, New York. © Joseph Beuys / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. \\\ Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York, courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York

2. Hear: Joseph Beuys Fonds Sculptures

Have you ever “heard” a material? This is the best way to describe the sensation when walking through this art installation comprised of stacked felt sheets, piled high enough to create a small labyrinth and walk through it. You will literally feel the sound sucked out of the air around you. The anechoic silence comes across as a form of energy stored in the felt stacks, and expresses the power of acoustics as a sensory design element.

Photo: Ben Mickus

3. Taste/Smell: Sugar Cane Cocktail, Hawaii

Taste and especially smell can elicit strong connections and memories of place. Likewise, a place is more memorable when food or drink are part of the experience, activating multiple senses, rather than just passing through and “seeing” it. On a recent trip to the Big Island of Hawaii, I stayed at a historic plantation house set in a lush forest on the slope of a volcano. As if the location alone wasn’t memorable enough, the handmade cocktails including black sugar cane harvested on the property, burnished the experience in my memory more deeply.

Photo: Ben Mickus

4. Touch: Haptic Exhibition, Japan

I attended a design exhibition called Haptic, curated by Japanese architect Kenya Hara, filled with examples of how design can go beyond the visual and into the tactile domain. The traditional wood block sandals, designed by Shuhei Hasado, left a lasting impression for the way they convey a unique sensation that one can imagine just by looking at the objects. This exhibition sparked the idea of multi-sensory design, which I pursue in much of my own work.

Photo: Ben Mickus

5. Kinesthetic: San Diego Children’s Museum, San Diego

I spend a lot of time with my two children, following their interests and trying to understand their curiosity. We’ve been to many children’s museums, but one of the best incubators for creative and immersive installations is the San Diego Children’s Museum. The rope tower pictured here was a unique experience of constantly reorienting your body as you move through a 3-dimensional spiderweb, without even needing to worry about gravity. The inspiration I have found in this and other exhibits has informed my own work on Children’s play space design.

Works by Ben Mickus:

Photo: Ryan Gobuty

Hedron Pendant
The Hedron Pendant is a 3d-printed chandelier, inspired by nature and the extraterrestrial. Using hexagonal geometry, bioplastic material, the shade is an array of tapered cell walls, precisely angled to bounce light twice from the internal LED source to the softly diffused light exiting the fixture. The subtle, striated surface texture creates a distinctive gradient across each surface. The Hedron Pendant was influenced by Danish designer Poul Henningsen, whose careful analysis of reflection patterns informed the research for this fixture, while reinterpreting his work through parametric design, CNC-based fabrication methods and renewable materials. The Hedron Pendant is a finalist for the 2025 IF Design Award.

Photo: Robert Bean

Relief Chair
The Relief Chair is a layered assembly of 1/2″ thick sheets of wool felt supported by break-formed stainless steel legs. The design aims to sculpt a piece of furniture from a solid and rapidly renewable material, eliminating upholstery and environmentally unfriendly foam products. The waterjet-cut contours of each piece of felt define the overall form. The cascading edges manifest an integral pattern with a visual, tactile and acoustic effect. The Relief Chair is in the Permanent Collection of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York.

Photo: Celso Rojas

Union Pendant
The union pendant is a playful composition of dome pendant shades, intersected and subtracted with boolean operations to evoke the natural forms found in soap bubbles and slot canyons. The aluminum shade with walnut diffuser was created through five sequential fabrication methods, including spun aluminum, template cutting, welding, powder coating, and CNC-shaping the walnut. The LED source concealed on top of the walnut diffuser provides an enigmatic and indirect glow.

Photo: Ryan Gobuty

Taylor House – Alameda, California, USA
The Taylor house dramatically expands and transforms a 1910 colonial house, with modern design, sustainable thinking and custom-fabricated furnishings carefully inserted within the historic shell. The finished project is best described as a gradient. On one end, the historic character of the original house interior is restored. At the other end, ceilings are eliminated to create a 3-story cathedral-ceiling atrium beside a wall of operable windows, allowing natural light and views to penetrate all the way through the house. In between are a series of transitional moments serving as focal points where new interleaves with old, while creating unexpected views and spatial connections from one room to the next. A custom-fabricated a matte black steel ships-ladder serves as the focal point within the space. With open risers and bent-plate treads, the stair rises and connects to a catwalk which soars through the upper volume of the kitchen on the way to a finished attic space above.

Photo: Ryan Gobuty

Open Beam Pendant
The Open Beam Pendant is a linear LED light fixture, with luminous strips positioned within a pair of CNC-milled aluminum beams, concealing the light source no matter which angle you look at it. The void space between the parallel bars, capped by CNC-sculpted hardwood blocks at each end, allows reflected light to emanate outward, creating a diffuser glow all around the fixture. The opening also frames a view through the center of the fixture.