Mississippi and beyond

For those small Portland firms that are surviving the Great Recession without closing their doors, the path may be one of more modest projects: renovations over new buildings, and gritty low-budget affairs over granite countertops.

That description would fit SUM Design Studio, the two-person firm of Matt Loosemore and Eric Hoffman. They've designed from-the-ground-up buildings, such as the SUM-thing New Condos that I wrote about earlier this year, and that were also included in the 11xDesign homes tour. But lately SUM's projects are remodels, such as an expansion of Mississippi Studios in north Portland.

Situated like its name suggests on Mississippi Avenue, the recording studio, bar and performance space has spent most of its history as a tiny cramped environment. It's also a site with a colorful past. A pentecostal church used to occupy the tiny storefront there, as did an old house in back.

SUM unified the front and back spaces, pushing the performance stage and balconies away from the streetfront and creating a Mississippi Studios that feels like an effortless link to the past. Rejuvenation was a key partner, providing a host of vintage lamps and lighting fixtures. The best materials, though, may have come from onsite. The bar's countertop, its ceiling beams and other parts of the project were built using reclaimed timber from the deconstructed house.

Hoffman and Loosemore's firm also has two other projects in various stages of completion: a mixed use space at East Burnside and 25th, complete with ample glass and wood trim, and a renovation of a unique but mostly ignored storefront on SE Seventh near Sandy Boulevard with a curving circular glass wall. They're also at work on a brewpub in Southeast Portland, and hope to get back soon to developing ground-up projects of their own designs, such as the aforementioned condo project. Until then, SUM is proving you can produce quality designs, and survive as a business, at any scale and in any economy.

Comments

[thefuture]

id like to see more stories of small offices getting out quality work despite the recession. specifically the ones not normally mentioned here. could make a nice series of posts?

this is good reason to finally go check out mississippi (type that 5 times fast) studios.

[PD]

Like I mentioned in a prior post, it was notable to see Vallaster Corl's project on Alberta. A neat project for sure, but more than anything I was suprised to see Vallaster take on something so small after doing larger projects like Jefferson, Block 90, Hawthorne, and others...perhaps a harbinger of things to come where we'll see a lot of smaller projects coming from larger, more high profile firms during this "Great Recession".