The
team.
MiMo is led by Leonard Miller and Catherine Moronell. The architectural practice was formed in Johannesburg in early 2019 after several years of informal collaboration.
Both Leonard and Catherine hold Master’s degrees in Architecture and are professionally registered with SACAP. Having practised in Cape Town for several years prior to establishing their studio, Catherine and Leonard have distinct experience in both public buildings and private residences.
Leonard leads the design team, focusing on bigger-picture conceptual thinking, setting the early design intention of a project and ensuring continuity in the language of the project as the details are developed.
Catherine leads production, technical resolution and project administration, ensuring all aspects of the project are carefully co-ordinated and working closely with the project consultants and contractors.
What we
do
MiMo works across homes, housing, workplaces, schools and small public or commercial projects, helping clients shape architectural work from first ideas to finished buildings.
Our process begins with careful listening and a close reading of context: the site, the brief, the budget, the ambitions of the project and the conditions around it. We respond with clarity rather than excess, guiding each project with care from early thinking to built form.
Depending on what is needed, we can assist with early advice, feasibility work, concept design, approvals, technical documentation, contractor pricing and construction-stage involvement through to completion.
Once we understand the project, we prepare a service proposal shaped around it.
Write “Guide” in the contact form and we’ll send you MiMo’s guide to the stages of an architectural project. Ask for the guide →
Our design
principles
We take a process-driven approach to projects from concept to implementation. We undergo cycles of idea-testing and collaborate with a project team to develop lasting and clever solutions.
Context is important to us. We put time into researching the sphere our clients operate in. We analyse the physical site to find appropriate long-term spatial and material responses to the physical and organisational context as a whole.
There are fundamentals in building design that we must get right in every project as a responsibility to our clients and to the wider community: north orientation, natural daylighting & ventilation, air quality & acoustics, water & energy efficiency and longevity.
We choose materials carefully. We are cognisant of maintenance and durability, as well as the embodied economic, social and environmental qualities of materials. Wherever we can, we aim to support the local manufacturing industry.
Our focus is on conceptualising appropriate responses in budget while delivering robust, beautiful environments.
Selected
features
MiMo’s work has been published in local and international architecture and design platforms, including House & Leisure, VISI, ArchDaily, Designboom and Scape.
Our projects have received recognition from the Gauteng Institute for Architecture, and MiMo was included in SCAPE 100, a curated selection of practices and voices contributing to contemporary South African architecture and design.
These features form part of a growing public record and peer review of the studio’s work: architecture shaped by context, restraint, material care and the lived experience of space.
