PLUS-SUM is a contemporary design practice focused on projects where strategic, systemic, and progressive ideas can be brought to bear on complex design problems. Projects vary across type and scale and are influenced by design research within the studio. The name PLUS-SUM has multi-layered meaning, reflecting the deep commitment of the studio to develop work that challenges singular solutions in favor of more highly integrated projects evolving from an open and iterative process.
The primary meaning can be understood via strategic solutions in game theory, where PLUS-SUM is described as a "win-win" result. This "win-win" stands in opposition to the traditional zero-sum requiring winners and losers. In contemporary design practice, the best way to achieve a PLUS-SUM solution is through close collaboration with clients, consultants, contractors, and other specialists to develop an integrated and thoughtful response to complex design problems. Within this multi-disciplinary approach, a second interpretation might be the studio (SUM) and its collaborating entities (PLUS) which form and reform depending upon the project and problem at hand.
Internally, the studio is organized into teams that fluctuate depending on need and opportunity, but the work is always understood as collaborative in nature. This internal structure leads to another interpretation that acknowledges the formation, organization, and values of the practice; the team (PLUS) fluctuates and the constant is the studio's founder and design director, Martin Summers (SUM).