PLUS-SUM Studio

PLUS-SUM is a contemporary design practice focused on projects where strategic, systemic, and progressive ideas can be brought to bear on complex and dynamic design problems. Projects vary across type and scale and are always seeking new opportunities to uniquely express client goals and aspirations. We believe that design can add value to any situation, synthesizing disparate and conflicting issues, while revealing intangible qualities that stir the spirit, engage the intellect and activate the senses. Projects emerge from a rigorous process that produces innovative responses and pragmatic solutions. Design is a problem solving process that requires deep investigation of the stated goals, constraints, forces, and possible variations to find win-win or value added solutions. It is not possible to fully understand all the issues from the beginning; therefore, we develop strategic, adaptive strategies that remain open to new discoveries to address nuanced layers of interactions within a given problem. First and foremost we are problem seekers, continually redefining our understanding of the given problem, as we increase our knowledge. We learn from our discoveries, feed them back into the process, and see every difficulty as a new design opportunity. This process leads to a more integrated, holistic, and robust solution specific to each project. The name SUM attempts to express this deep and integrated process via a multi-layered meaning, and reflects our commitment to develop work responsive to the unique combinations of client, program, site, technology and culture.