SEEDS Of Promise

SEEDS Of Promise is a place-based urban community improvement initiative located in the Southeast community of Grand Rapids. Their mission is to provide a tiered program of employment, education, and housing to homeless individuals in Grand Rapids. In the winter of 2016, SEEDS Of Promise and the Collaborative Projects course began a strong relationship, mainly involved with researching and developing concepts for the housing aspect of their program.

Through a great process of understanding both the mission behind SEEDS as an organization, as well as the underlying issues of homelessness in our community, this class utilized the tools of Design Thinking to bring about a housing solution that would address some of the issues that unfolded. While the solution solves a relevant issue for SEEDS, it also addresses a broader issue in the housing market: by proving a versatile solution to affordable housing, this building model can be adapted elsewhere and applied to different audiences.

The design has been taken over by a local construction company, and SEEDS Of Promise intends to move forward with the solution this class provided. To watch a video about this project, click here .

• Class
• Team
• Instructor

• Collaborative Projects, Spring 2016


• Ian Culver, Owen Loughrin, Lauren Martelli, Anthony Murtha, Emily Pinter, Aaron Porter, Eric Schroeder, Emma Williams


• Cameron Van Dyke