Driven By Principle

This approach asks our clients to partner with us as co-leaders on every project, drawing together objective scientific measurements about building performance with the soft power of improving peoples’ lives through design. We act as guides through the often-difficult process of confronting seemingly insoluble problems, seeking solutions through clear-eyed and robust explorations into what is possible, and what should be done.

The most successful buildings are those brought to life by strong partnership. Together with building owners and other stakeholders, we define challenges, coordinate schedules and budgets, and come up with realistic, grounded, and equitable solutions. Studio Ma is well-versed in the complex needs of large-scale institutional, civic, and cultural buildings, and is experienced in securing enthusiastic approval from internal leadership groups, regulatory agencies, end users, and the wider public. We see each person as a partner to whom we can advocate, and from whom we can learn. We take joy in guiding our clients and collaborators through each step, from uncovering the heart of a client’s ambition and designing for it, to a smooth approvals process, to completing a building that has the desired positive impact on people and their surroundings.

Every human, plant, and animal deserves a dignified, healthy, and equitable experience. To come as close to this as we can, Studio Ma undertakes deep research into every project’s site, its future inhabitants and neighbors, and its surrounding ecology.

We want to see our architecture create joy and a high quality of life, even with a modest construction budget. We seek to challenge/confront inequalities formed by earlier development that privileged one group over others, even if unintentionally done. An architecture for everyone supports idiosyncratic experiences of a place and resolves disparities among us.

This practice, when coupled with our emphasis on joy and livability, results in architecture that aims to confront inequalities, improve dis-ease, and resolve social, political, and environmental disparities. We bring a spirit of resourcefulness to solving technical, social, and budgetary constraints, and seek with every project to marry pragmatism to optimism.

Every design project, no matter the size, invites us to consider the effects of construction on our local and global climate. We partner with researchers, institutes, and the private sector to keep ourselves informed on the latest science and technology, choosing building materials with great care for maximum adaptability, low carbon emissions, and ecological sensitivity.

We aim with every building to zero out a structure’s energy and water consumption, and to use both new construction and renovation to generate ecological balance. We emphasize passive design features, harnessing location, siting, topography, and orientation to achieve comprehensive and realistic sustainability goals.