Design Spotlight: Lichen for Karimoku

The word Lichen is defined as a mutually symbiotic relationship between multiple organisms working, living, and evolving in harmony. A far cry from the standard showrooms and galleries that populate concentrated districts of New York City, the multivalent design platform that carries this term as its moniker operates as an incubator and advisory serving the Ridgewood, Queens community as much as serving as a showroom. In many respects, Lichen accomplishes what this fundamentally democratic domain should: bringing viable solutions—in whatever form they might take—to a broader audience. The platform’s co-founder Jared Blake spoke to ICFF about this dynamic approach and Lichen’s ongoing collaboration with Japanese heritage furniture producer Karimoku Furniture: the launch of an entirely new collection and the reintroduction of an iconic design exhumed from the latter’s archive.

Talk a bit about the ethos behind Lichen as an incubator re-evaluating how we interact with different forms of design. 

Jared Blake: Lichen in its most basic/skeletal form is a space that sells furniture and homewares. When you go into the complexity of it, we represent a point in time of transition from one home to another, an act which in essence, helps us transition from one chapter to another. As your needs and tastes change as a person, so do the needs of the home. Lichen responds to the changing of needs of our community and customers through thoughtful design and problem solving. Be it a place for inspiration and communion or the function of a purchase for a commercial or residential project. We observe and respond to the design community with designers, carpenters and strategists as a living organism. We continue to permeate the autonomous world of interiors by collecting, re-contextualizing, and formulating new thoughts on design with the support of our community. Amongst other things, we sell furniture.

How is this thinking defined on a social and cultural level? How is this thinking defined on a practical level—what are your day-to-day operations like? 

J.B.: On a social and cultural level, diversity is very important for thinking and building on thought from separate lessons applied to shared experience. Diversity and hip-hop culture are how NYC became a global example of what is ‘cool’ or contemporary. On a practical level, Lichen is the only place where you can buy a Gaetano Pesce, Prouvé or a hardwood chair from our woodshop in the same place you saw an artist perform the night before and it wasn’t forced or monetized from someone outside of the culture. This is a need in design because it welcomes genuine problem solvers or thinkers from other realms of industry to this one, design. 

We have a team of ten individuals with varied day to day operations so it’s not a simple answer but our operations include: Sourcing, Designing, Marketing, Building, Logistics, Strategizing and Organizing.   

How, as an independent producer with closely adhered operational principles, is Karimoku Furniture a kindred spirit? How did your collaboration first come about?

J.B.: As we mentioned earlier, cultural diversity is key. Any aspiring designer that values simplicity, reason, and craftsmanship must be a student of Japanese design in one form or another. Japan is one of the meccas of ‘good’ design and has influenced the pencil and perspectives of our many design heros. Karimoku Furniture, being one of the leading manufacturers of wooden furniture in the country, has absolutely mastered the intricate spirit of craftsmanship and making high quality furniture at scale. Lichen brings to the table its perspective and considerations from understanding today’s consumers and tastemakers. The combination has been said to be like French fashion house Lemaire meeting Japanese retailer Uniqlo. 

During a team trip to Japan a few years ago we visited the Karimoku Commons Tokyo and made a connection with the producer’s furniture team, very organically seeded I might add with an introduction by our colleague Ryo Kumazaki. We did not have a plan in place, we just had a mutual understanding of Karimoku Furniture and Lichen’s position in the global design community and thought it might be intriguing to collaborate in some capacity. 

Last year we produced a capsule of designs titled Recon AA in which we re-contextualized the signature AA Stool by Ishinomaki Studio. We worked hand in hand with Karimoku Furniture’s designers, technicians, engineers, and carpenters at their facilities in Aichi, Japan to bring this collection to life. The result was launched by our good friends at Hako, a gallery located in Chiba.

This exercise was our first experience working together to build furniture. We both had to navigate several layers of language barriers: actual language but also design fabrication procedures. Our measurements are different, metric and imperial. Our time zones are different as is our sense of proportion. However, we still found a way to connect in the middle. In fact, that’s what made that collection so distinct. It’s what makes New York unique as well.  Lichen’s head carpenter Aidan Elias was fundamental in making sure our designs were in sync with the fabrication process and what Karimoku Furniture’s skilled carpenters could achieve.

What was the process in choosing to reassess and revive the classic ZE Sofa? Why is this concept so poignant and still relevant today? 

J.B.: We have a saying at the studio: “There’s food in the fridge.” Many of us may have grown up with our parents telling us this when we wanted to go out to eat. When we first laid eyes on the ZE sofa we were like, this is amazing! Why should we use our constantly shrinking bandwidth to design yet another ‘new’ sofa when timeless designs are collecting dust in an archive? ‘New’ doesn’t always mean better. A comfortable sofa to enjoy at the end of a day was just as important a need in 1982 as it is in 2025. Honestly there’s more in Karimoku Furniture’s archives than just the ZE sofa. This is just the beginning. They have a lot of food in the fridge. Our expertise is in sourcing and recontextualizing the past to the present. So, it’s a match made in heaven.   

What goes into relaunching a design sourced from an archive when it comes to choosing the right materials and production processes? Was the ambition to create an exact replication or reinterpret the concept’s main attributes through a contemporary lens?

J.B.: It’s not as easy as one might think. There are certain details, techniques and even machinery from 1982 that aren’t used today. The ruching technique used on the sofa hasn’t been incorporated as a design by Karimoku Furniture since that time. Working with the engineers to make sure we could achieve the desired outcome was a fun challenge. We didn’t need to create an exact replication from the ground up but “if it aint broke don’t fix it,” as the saying goes. Leather is still the gold standard for material and luckily the heritage houses we’ve sourced leather from are still manufacturing at best-in-class standards. This sofa had three different seat support options: foam, spring coil, or webbing. We selected the foam with flat spring option most suitable for the weight and comfort of today’s consumer. In the ZE Sofa’s past life, it might have been more practical in an office setting but we’re anticipating this being a residential powerhouse just as much as a commercial one. The post-pandemic lens blurs the lines between what is office and what isn’t. ‘Work from home’ became ‘home of work’.     

Take us through the brand-new Compartments collection. What’s the underlying idea and how is it being realized?

J.B.: Compartment is a composite of some of the lessons learned from the inner workings of the Lichen practice. The core item started with the Apple Box. known for its versatility as a photo studio object for standing / sitting or ‘other’ represents the spirit of Compartment. Le Corbusier’s interpretation of the apple box with the LC14 Tabouret juxtaposed the functionality and simplicity of this item with the quiet luxury of a cabin in the south of France. That is also the spirit we’re aiming to achieve: unassuming luxury through thoughtful empathy. Designing with storage in mind is still the most pragmatic direction for being a person in New York City or Tokyo, so we focused our efforts on finding new ways to incorporate storage or modularity within this debut collection. 

How does this collection stem from shared values; a similar belief of what furniture design should achieve?

J.B.: We learned during the design process that neither party wanted a reinterpretation of what they already knew. We didn’t simply want a collection of Japanese furniture on tatami mats from American designers. And we didn’t simply want classic American furniture made by Japanese craftspeople. We wanted to address common problems that superseded nationality: storage, function, and lighting. Karimoku Furniture’s commitment to producing the highest quality furniture as a priority made it possible for us to ground this collection in a timeless fashion, which is what we all need from our furniture today: longevity.  

How does this collection highlight the best attributes, qualities of both Lichen and Karimoku Furniture?

J.B.: This collection shows a commitment to risk and forward thinking from both Lichen and Karimoku Furniture. Most of the industry understands that the landscape is constantly shifting and understandably risk averse. What worked last year or over the past ten years, might not work a year from now. Once one understands this, they must be dynamic in their approach, establish relationships with like minded individuals to push their project into the next generation. Combining Karimoku Furniture’s caliber of meticulous craftsmanship and deep-rooted tradition with Lichen’s innovation and dynamic approach to this generation’s design community is the best use of both our capabilities. 

If you are curious to discover more about LICHEN, check out their website, HERE
Follow LICHEN on Instagram, and if you wish to learn more about the collaboration between LICHEN and Karimoku, make sure to visit ICFF, May 18-20, 2025