I recently sat down with Asya Uysal, North America Regional Manager Mikodam, to talk about the company’s exceptionally beautiful acoustical wall and ceiling treatments, entering the CEDIA channel, and why the world is taking notice. Part 1
Maureen Jenson: I was so impressed with your acoustical treatment products when I met you at CEDIA EXPO last year, tell our readers about your company’s history.
Asya Uysal: In Mikodam’s foundation lies a half-century legacy of experience and know-how in the fields of high-end contract furnishings. We have completed many prestigious residential, commercial, entertainment and hospitality projects in various countries around the globe.
Melih Gün, the founder of Mikodam Design and IKOOR, and Katherine Ceren Stark Gün are the head of the company. They are design and life partners. Melih Gün comes from a family of furniture designers who raised Melih in an innovative, nourishing environment where he learned the art of furniture through direct experience. Later he studied industrial design at METU. Ceren Stark comes from a family of intellectuals who value art, culture and knowledge. She studied industrial design at METU as well.
Mikodam founders Melih and Ceren Gun photographed at CEDIA EXPO 2019
Together with their team, Melih and Ceren, who carry their families’ values and insights on art, design and innovation, brought this legacy into Mikodam and IKOOR, the companies they founded in order to take a step towards the future. IKOOR is our contract project firm where we provide manufacturing solutions. Mikodam’s focus is on design, creating products that will carry our solutions into the market. We avoid mass production, keeping Mikodam products boutique.
In our team every opinion is valued equally, and we work as a whole, believing that we can all learn from one another.
We always seek progress nourishing our designs with technology and innovations. Mikodam combines its deep-rooted knowledge of traditional design with a forward looking attitude in modern design. We use special techniques for manufacturing, using machinery such as CNC and computational design and parametric design agents that have proven to be the leading ones in the world. We work with professionals and consultants on acoustics, fire safety, and civil engineering, collaborating with universities. Our aim is to always stay up-to-date or even to create new options offering solutions.
Bang & Olufsen Beverly Hills Showroom
Home theater and listening room combo design
The Source AV 2-channel room in Torrance (Los Angeles)
MJ: Tell our readers about the caliber of some of your projects?
AU: For Heydar Aliyev Auditorium, designed by Zaha Hadid, Mikodam was responsible for the acoustic design. We worked with consultants and professionals on these matters, providing solutions and eventually manufacturing and applying the acoustical layers, the metal ceiling structure and the interior wooden wall claddings, mastering the logic behind these curved acoustic panels; we transferred our knowledge and expertise in acoustics and design, perfecting it into our own acoustic panels which are now at the service of the whole world to reform their interiors.
We collaborated with Softroom for Turkish Airlines Lounges in Istanbul Airport. Mikodam manufactured and applied the interior Flow Wall, a parametric design that is over a kilometer long, making it one of the longest parametric interior forms in the world. The ribbon-like wall flows through the lounges, unifying them.
Mikodam has been a part of residential, commercial, workplace, entertainment and hospitality projects; sometimes as the solution provider sometimes as the designer, most times both. Every project we work on carries new challenges helping us evolve. We work with designers who share our enthusiasm in seeking a better future. Design and architecture not only provide us a comfortable living, they also shape the future. It is a philosophy that questions a better way to live. We work with amazing architects and designers helping them bring what they imagine into life .
Some of the projects we took part in are:
Heydar Aliyev Center by Zaha Hadid
Istanbul Airport Turkish Airlines Lounges by Softroom
Baku Flame Towers
Astana Expo Center
Awaza Convention Center
Merinos Culture Center
Ashgabat Airport