MINIMALIST

M I M A inherited the practice from its precedent MimA NY Studio in New York and SaiGon City, founded by Minh Tran and Herry Johnson associates in 2014. MIMA is a human infrastructure of skilled craftsmen and architects who design and build the work directly. Gathered through time, this group shares an environment created from an iterative process, where ideas are explored through the production of large-scale mock-ups, models, material studies, sketches and drawings.

Here projects are developed through careful consideration of place and a practice that draws from traditional skills, local building techniques, materials, and an ingenuity arising from limited resources. The essence of our work lies in the relationship between land and architecture, it requires coming to terms with the presence of the environment through the succession of seasons.

Inspired by real life conditions, we observe the complexity of relationships within each project without any assumption or prejudice. Our attempt is to remain intuitive, and look for a space to initiate a dialogue. It is through this practice that the matter being observed naturally reveals itself. The endeavor is to show the genuine possibility in creating buildings that emerge through a process of collective dialog, a face-to-face sharing of knowledge through imagination, intimacy, and modesty.

“Our immediate environment is a space that we subconsciously create and inhabit. We can make this space very familiar, or we can expose ourselves to unfamiliar elements that provoke our response and re-evaluation. There are many sources of inspiration: one only has to observe closely. It is possible to have set ideas of what architecture should be, but first we need to understand why things are a certain way.” - Minh Tran