Midori Ainoura

Partner

Midori has two decades of professional experience with a focus on complex office, master planning, residential, academic and institutional projects across the UK, the US, Europe and Asia. Her site specific and highly contextual design approach capitalises on the urban and environmental potential of each project and she brings an enriched sense of place that is carefully woven into the fabric of her work.

At Bankside Yards, she is currently leading the design of the 1.4m sq ft master plan along with several residential and office buildings next to the Tate Modern in London. This project will establish a new cultural neighbourhood for life, work and leisure that will reconnect and rejuvenate a key central Cultural Quarter. She is also leading PLP Architecture’s activities in Japan, where she is currently designing a large scale mixed-use masterplan and several mixed-use buildings.

Midori led the design of The Edge, our multi-award-winning sustainable beacon in Amsterdam created for Deloitte. The project set new standards for sustainable design through actively integrated environmental features and also proactively intelligent workplace design. In London, she worked on the Westferry Printworks Masterplan, a residential-led development on the Isle of Dogs, a library extension for the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and two new halls of residence at the Prince’s Gardens Campus of Imperial College.

Before this, Midori’s experience includes a wide range of projects across Europe, Asia and the US. These include large scale master plans in Gurgaon, India, Moscow and Muscat, Oman, a media centre in Abu Dhabi, an office and retail development in Delhi, headquarters in Amsterdam and the new National Theatre of Cyprus and hotel resorts in Macau, China and Abu Dhabi.

She is a founding member of PLP Labs, the practice’s in-house interdisciplinary research and consulting unit that challenges future urban issues from urban, human and digital perspectives. She lectures regularly across Europe and Asia on next-generation workplace design and cultural placemaking. Her work and experience has been widely covered in the media and Midori was featured as one of nine new leading contemporary Japanese architects.

Following a Master of Environmental Engineering from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Midori received a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania.