Projects + Partnerships
400 FORWARD is honored to have the support of local and national sponsors who believe in the value of our efforts.
We appreciate all of these partnerships and invite others to join us. If interested in becoming a sponsor, please visit our contact page.
GRAPHISOFT
Official Software
+ Technology Partner
As the software and technology partner for 400 FORWARD, GRAPHISOFT empowers the organization’s chosen mentees with full access to an education version of Archicad and GRAPHISOFT Learn, the company’s education and learning portal. Live, hands-on training with GRAPHISOFT experts on an on-going basis strengthen the partnership.
Read about the partnership here.
Watch Founder + CEO Tiffany D. Brown discuss the efforts of 400 FORWARD on Graphisoft’s Instagram here.
Ford Mobility
Community Engagement Events
The City: One Michigan Central Station Challenge puts residents at the center of Ford Motor Company's headquarters relocation to Detroit and dives deep to understand the barriers that keep the community surrounding Michigan Central Station and the area’s residents from reaching their aspirations today.
400 FORWARD has partnered with Ford Mobility to lead community engagement efforts around each phase of the challenge. Through the Challenge, residents, workers, and visitors in the community surrounding Michigan Central Station will work with the private and public sectors to identify unmet mobility needs, collaborate on developing solutions that address those needs, and help select one or more pilot projects to share up to $250,000 in funding to launch their proposals.
Detroit Land Bank
Day Camps
The 400 FORWARD students worked in collaboration with Detroit Land Bank’s “Rehabbed and Ready” team on revitalizing affordable residences in the Fitzgerald neighborhood. This partnership with the Detroit Land Bank introduced girls to architecture, construction, landscape design, and urban planning, while taking part in the city’s vision for the Fitzgerald neighborhood to tackle its 373 parcels (every publicly owned abandoned piece of property is within a quarter-square mile).
In an ongoing effort until its completion projected in December 2020, the students will spend mornings visiting R&R homes with deconstructed interior spaces, and spend the afternoons space planning for those homes with the help of Detroit-based women architects and designers at different points in their careers.
Mismatch
How Inclusion Shapes Design
400 FORWARD founder and CEO Tiffany D. Brown contributed to Kat Holmes' book, Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design, with a chapter titled #WithNotFor. The book’s focus is on inclusive design — a method for designing products that considers the full range of human diversity. Holmes states, “The most important aspect is including people in the design process who have been excluded from using a particular category of products for a very long time.”
