If you’re walking through the deep, back-streets of Shibuya, you may very well come across a decrepit-looking building overgrown by ferns and ivy. And you may very well ponder upon the indiscriminate voracity of nature for a brief second. You may very well snap a picture. And then you may very well move on. But don’t dismiss this as an abandoned building to be eventually demolished and replaced with high-end apartments. This is actually a brand new co-working space called Midori.so.
Upon traveling to Portland with friends, Miho Koshiba was inspired by the number of renovated coworking spaces there. She returned to Japan convinced that Tokyo needed one as well. When fate led her to an old building that had been abandoned over 10 years ago, she knew this was it. With the help of friends, she spent 6 months cleaning up the place, but preserved the eye-catching exterior. They named it Midoro.so partly as a nod to their green, sustainable initiatives (midori is green in Japanese) but also as a throwback to the legendary Tokiwa-so apartments that housed young manga artists like Osamu Tezuka and Fujiko Fujio who went on to become famous.
If you’re looking for a collaborative workspace in Tokyo, go and learn more. Their website is in both Japanese and English!
September 7, 2012 at 6:49 pm
Osamu Tezuka was known for many outstanding manga, but not Akira. That was Katsuhiro Otomo.
September 9, 2012 at 10:35 pm
@Otokichi – thanks. I was obviously trying to write something other than what ended up coming out. Fixed now.