“I could be poor in life, but I should never be poor in experiences.” That was the advice Jiun Ho‘s mother gave him when he was eight. The San Francisco-based creative still lives by it, and it shapes the objects he makes today. Those experiences eventually led him to the petronas twin towers interiors in Kuala Lumpur, a project he still counts among his most important.
Ho grew up in a lower-middle-class family in rural Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, during the 1970s. Art and architecture barely touched his daily life. At age 9, he visited Japan, his first trip outside Malaysia, and the experience rearranged his priorities.
“I didn’t know interior design was a job,” Ho recalls. “But I knew I’d seen something I couldn’t forget: the buildings, the craft, the care in everything, the sense of history.”
That trip started a lifelong interest in design and a habit of travel. Ho has visited 135 countries, and the count keeps rising. “I come home, and I want to make something,” he says.
Japan’s rice country has its own quiet architecture too, as seen in a Wooden Pavilion Resting Among Nara Rice Fields that pairs a rest spot with a water tank.
Petronas twin towers interiors: a homecoming project
His first major project brought him back to Malaysia. He worked on the interiors of César Pelli’s Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, a building the entire country followed as it rose. Ho still ranks his work on the petronas twin towers interiors among his best. “A Malaysian kid working on the building that put Kuala Lumpur on the map. You don’t forget that.” The petronas towers remain the image most people associate with the city, which made the project feel personal.
A residential job in Taipei, completed 26 years ago, opened the next door. After Ho finished the apartment’s interiors, the client asked him to design furniture, lighting, and rugs. Ho had never designed furniture. He presented 35 watercolor sketches, and the client wanted every piece built.
Jiun Ho’s sketch of the YuanYang side table. Photography courtesy of Ho.
From that first commission, Ho’s studio grew into a global lifestyle brand. It now designs high-end residential, hospitality, and restaurant interiors. It also produces furniture, lighting, and textiles for the trade. Its early credibility rested on a Malaysian landmark and a Taipei apartment that few clients would have trusted to a first-time furniture designer.
In a five-minute conversation, Ho described the inspiration behind three pieces from Unbound, a limited-edition capsule collection that debuted in September 2026.
The Whisper Pendant in the Unbound Collection by Jiun Ho. Photography courtesy of Ho.
Unbound: four designers, one brief
Ho invited four designers he admires to join the project: Francis Nicdao of Pembrooke & Ives, James Hunter of The Wiseman Group, Jamie Drake, and Nicole Fuller. He gave them one constraint. Nothing could be bigger than 36 by 36 by 36 inches.
Each designer made one original object that drew on their specialty, whether furniture, lighting, or textiles. Every piece also used one of two crafts: hand-painted wallpaper or cloisonné by Lala Curio, one of Ho’s creative partners.
Ho explains the purpose of the project in direct terms. “The point was to show what we can really do. Our craft. How far we can take customization. And what happens when you put creative people together and say yes to their ideas instead of no.”
Sketches by Jiun Ho
Ho did not stop at one object. He designed three, and each one draws on his travels and what they taught him. In his own words, here is where each piece began.
Three objects, three sources of inspiration
The YuanYang side table
The Yuanyang Hani Rice Terraces in China inspired Jiun Ho. Photography by Ho.
“Yuanyang County is in the Yunnan province of China, where generations of farmers have carved whole mountainsides into rice terraces. Thousands of steps of water and earth, all shaped by hand. To me, it’s one of the most beautiful examples of people and nature working together.”
The YuanYang Side Table by Jiun Ho. Photography courtesy of Ho.
“That’s where the YuanYang side table came from. It’s clad in metal with a cinnamon bronze finish, and the steps down each side are covered in intricate cloisonné. The steps echo the terraces, and the cloisonné captures the pattern of the fields catching light.”
The Whisper pendant
The silkworm cocoon also inspired Jiun Ho’s work. Photography by Ho.
“A cocoon is one of nature’s perfect forms. It’s soft and strong, protecting something while it changes. That’s the shape of the Whisper pendant. The surface comes from kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, where the crack becomes the most beautiful part.”
The team tore handmade Japanese washi paper into pieces and glued them back together. They then traced the seams in gold leaf to form a kintsugi-inspired pattern. “When it’s lit, it glows like light through silk.”
Light that carries myth and material craft also shows up in Apparatus’s Myth-Inspired Afsaneh Lighting Collection, which combines blown glass with brass for a similar glowing effect.
Whisper Pendant by Jiun Ho. Photography courtesy of Ho.
The Forma pendant
“In Chinese culture, 8 is the luckiest number. It means good fortune and prosperity. Turn it on its side, and it becomes the symbol for infinity. The Forma pendant comes from that double meaning: good fortune and infinity, luck that never ends. Its shade is painted in gold and silver leaf, so the fortune appears to fall from heaven.”
The Forma pendant in the Unbound collection by Jiun Ho. Photography courtesy of Ho.
Each of the three objects starts with a place or a symbol Ho carried home from a trip. The side table records farmland shaped over generations. The pendants hold a cocoon’s protection and a broken bowl’s repair. Ho’s clearest lesson is the one his mother gave him: experience becomes design only when someone chooses to make something from it. That is the same principle that guided his work on the petronas twin towers interiors, where a childhood of curiosity met a city’s ambitions.
Source: design-milk.com
Frequently asked questions
What is the Unbound collection by Jiun Ho?
Unbound is a limited-edition capsule collection that debuted in September 2026. Ho invited four designers he admires to join the project, and each made one original object with a specialty in furniture, lighting, or textiles.
What size limit did the Unbound designers have to follow?
Nothing in the Unbound collection could be bigger than 36 by 36 by 36 inches. This was the single constraint Ho gave the participating designers.
Which designers contributed to the Unbound collection?
The Unbound collection involved Francis Nicdao of Pembrooke & Ives, James Hunter of The Wiseman Group, Jamie Drake, Nicole Fuller, and Jiun Ho himself. Every piece used either hand-painted wallpaper or cloisonné by Lala Curio.
How was the Whisper pendant made?
The team tore handmade Japanese washi paper into pieces and glued them back together. They then traced the seams in gold leaf to create a kintsugi-inspired pattern, and the pendant’s shape draws on a silkworm cocoon.
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