We all deserve good design. Proxy represents mission-based organizations and small businesses that want to improve their physical environments in order to uplift their people and their purpose. We partner with clients to ensure a holistic approach to their spaces at every stage: forming the initial idea and the strategic thought partnership needed to develop it; acquiring the financial resources to realize the space; finding and managing design and construction professionals to build it; and developing strategies for long-term space management.
The Alley Project (TAP) in southwest Detroit facilitates and supports the themes of creative expression, positive youth-adult partnerships, structure, community responsibility and participatory process through street art. After several years of more informal partnership between neighbors, street artists, and youth to create murals on neighborhood garage doors, TAP was created in 2011 as an infrastructure to support these relationships and resulting creative expressions.
insidesouthwest.com/thealleyproject
Collaborators:
Located along The Alley Project (TAP) and the neighborhood intersection of Avis and Elsmere streets, Inside Southwest Detroit developed a home at 8869 Avis for its initiatives that serve youth and community members between 2016-18. The building, a former dress shop that made square dancing outfits, also houses a collective of local artists and photographers. In 2019-20, a lot on the opposite corner will become an outdoor community space. TAP has been awarded funds to transform this key neighborhood intersection by ArtPlace America, Knight Arts Challenge Detroit, Kresge Innovative Projects: Detroit and the Surdna Foundation.
Collaborators:
Detroit Collaborative Design Center
Michigan Alterations & Construction Services
Co.act Detroit is a place where Southeast Michigan’s nonprofit community connects with one another and across sectors while accessing the knowledge, skills and resources needed to collaborate, innovate and amplify impact. In his role as Chief Strategy Officer at TechTown Detroit, Proxy’s president secured a $4.75 million three-year grant from the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation to launch the center in partnership with the Michigan Nonprofit Association then led a national search for the center’s first Executive Director. He managed the design and construction of the physical space that houses Co.act in a first-floor storefront on Woodward Avenue, directly below the Foundation’s offices.
Collaborators:
Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation
