2022
August 19, 2022
But if you’re picturing something that would sit in your grandparents’ house next to a doily-draped end table or something you might see in the latest IKEA catalog, think again.
2021
July 26, 2021
The program’s $4 million was an increase from the original plan to fund $3 million in grants. The Community Review Team initiated the change in a unanimous vote to extend more money to the providers.
July 6, 2021
The nonprofit has struggled to fully launch with the COVID-19 pandemic, but with these funds and getting involved with other area initiatives it is developing into something rich and meaningful.
June 28, 2021
There's a new platform trying to reimagine after-school programs. They gathered a group of 1,000 experts and paid them for their ideas. Who are these experts? The very teens using these programs.
2020
January 22, 2020
June 4, 2020
Ali’s intuition about the fourth floor became a three-year incubation program [for] Detroit’s creative community. What started as an experiment in 2017 has thoroughly transformed the iconic skyscraper.
April 27, 2020
Inclusive design can be a creative problem-solving tool for addressing serious economic and societal challenges.
February 7, 2020
In some cities, sustainable green thinking is built into development practices, but that’s not yet the case in Detroit.
2019
June 5, 2019
Managing Detroit’s ‘New’ Brand, while Respecting Its People and History
May 8, 2019
The Platform’s Director of Design and Culture, Abir Ali, will discuss new projects and provide a short tour of the Baltimore Station block.
April 24, 2019
“Patience and commitment” to helping communities needs to be “baked up front” in Detroit real estate development deals.
February 18, 2019
“Abir brings so much to the table — vision, creativity, expert skill at design, compassion and a love for the city and her fellow Detroiters.”
2018
August 10, 2018
Detroit and Chicago have notoriously fraught social divisions, but young designers and entrepreneurs from all backgrounds are working to improve their built surroundings.
June 8, 2018
Bourdain speaks of the Rare Craft Fellowship Award finalists with reverence: “. . . [They] have chosen to take this particular path, to do something that they’re passionate about, that they believe in, regardless of the difficulty.”
Urban Land Institute / Making - Is It the New Market?
May 7, 2018
Creating functional spaces for makers requires “patient capital” and landlords willing to see maker space development as a “long-term play,” said Abir Ali
March 27, 2018
They realized early on that no matter where they go, the tight-knit creative community in Detroit makes it the perfect place to pursue their passion.
March 8, 2018
April 26, 2018
Creativity in “Non-Creative” Places investigated creative leadership and the many methodologies that can emerge when a group of individuals endeavors to bring about positive change.
March 1, 2018
But there’s a long cast of understudies. Ali estimates they have hundreds of designs for pieces they never released publicly — some in sketch, some that made it to prototypes and some even fully built but not ready to be sold.
February 11, 2018
“We forced ourselves to be uncomfortable for a little bit and realized that there was a way to do it that felt OK to us.”
2017
September 21, 2017
This merger of creative minds successfully brings together two different design and process perspectives that result in handmade furniture that is not only beautiful, but precise, thoughtful, and built to last.
September 6, 2017
Designed to solve the eternal problem of what to do with all those books and magazines, the table has a storage component in its belly. “The challenge was, how do you achieve that without bending plywood or using different materials?”
July 20, 2017
Sandifer and Ali, who hold master’s degrees in architecture, say it’s rewarding to work in their chosen field. “We’re both designers, and I focus on the creative side while Andre crafts the furniture,” Ali says.
July 2, 2017
Abir Ali is the Director of Design and Culture at The Platform, leading the strategy in the role of design across developments.
June 22, 2017
Each piece in Ali Sandifer’s collection of elegant modern furniture starts with a conversation . . . From there, prototyping begins.
June 21, 2017
“My grandmother was my first collaborator . . . I come from a long line of seamstresses, and although I never quite learned to sew, I designed every dress I wore.”
November 14, 2017
Over the last five years, IdeaLab has showcased dozens of Detroiters on the vanguard of community and economic development -- and this year is no exception.
2016
August 5, 2016
Building a city’s future has never been so literal. “People design, build, and engineer things because it’s in their DNA.”
July 2016
A creative workforce is helping to renew some of the city’s most historic neighborhoods, one house and one workplace at a time
May 27, 2016
NEIdeas program manager Abir Ali joins Stephen Henderson of WDET’s Detroit Today to talk about the third and final year of the NEIdeas small business challenge.
May 17, 2016
They returned home from the Midwest in 2011 to handmake wooden furniture. Influenced by Charles and Ray Eames, who started their wide-ranging practice in Detroit, the two design, not in software, but in the workshop.
2015
October 10, 2015
Abir Ali’s role at the New Economy Initiative’s NEIdeas could be considered that of a player-coach.
Business Leaders for Michigan / Getting Real: How New and Seasoned Entrepreneurs Survive and Thrive
September 14, 2015
The fourth annual Michigan CEO Summit will bring together business executives, policymakers, and community leaders to assess Michigan’s continued progress
2014
March 14, 2014
“It is a reflection of honesty in the material and pushing its boundaries . . . It’s also the amount of care that goes into understanding how it goes together.”
January 20, 2014
Detroit, she believes, offers creative people “a real opportunity to make your mark, and also see the city evolve. So it’s a very interesting place for designers.”
October 9, 2014
They asked the public to carve a message about trust or forgiveness into the table, with the hopes of giving people a chance to get something off their chest.
2013
March 21, 2013
Among the leaders is Abir Ali who headed the 7.2 SQ MI project, an effort to document the center city’s rebirth and lay a foundation for thoughtful growth.
2012
Winter 2012
Ali and Sandifer note that their customers tend to realize that they are making an investment in a piece that will withstand the test of time.
October 2, 2012
Ten years ago Abir Ali left Detroit to attend grad school in Toronto, not sure if she would ever be back.
2004
April 16, 2004
The cheap, dilapidated laneway indeed tempts architects to undertake daring deeds -- to design imaginatively and boldly, and to launch public battles against city authorities reluctant to relax the rules that make imaginative laneway development difficult.