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One architect’s passion for multifaith spaces will continue through the work of DJDS

2022-06-06T15:30:00-04:00

The memory of one up-and-coming New York architect is being honored through a donation drive benefitting one of the firms he most admired, Oakland-based Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS).

Eric Salitsky was killed in Brooklyn on May 5th after being struck by a sanitation vehicle while on his bicycle. A native of Massachusetts, Salitsky studied for his master’s at the Pratt Institute before joining ESKW/Architects, where he continued to make a name for himself in the design and documentation of multifaith community spaces he pursued in the years following his graduation. Salitsky’s work eventually earned him an AIA Stewardson Keefe LeBrun Travel Grant and curated exhibition in 2019, and he was scheduled to deliver a presentation on the subject at the Architecture, Culture, and Spirituality Forum (ASCF) on June 4th.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eric Salitsky (@esalitsky)

His noted penchant for equity and shared personal drive to foster a mor...

Social Design and Restorative Justice: Architect Deanna Van Buren teaches us how to re-design with values

2021-03-03T09:30:00-05:00

For Deanna Van Buren, designing towards justice and equity is more than a trend; it's a lifelong calling to dismantle a system that perpetuates oppression and suppression for Black and Brown communities. Back in October 2019, Archinect chatted with Van Buren to learn more about her firm Designing Justice + Designing Space (DJDS) , and what it means to "design spaces for peacemaking, inside and out."

Many may be familiar with her remarkable work involving decarceration and "justice architecture" by unbuilding racism. Van Buren makes it very clear that while many may call her a "justice architect," her mission works towards ending mass incarceration by developing infrastructure that "counters the traditional adversarial and punitive architecture of justice—courthouses, prisons, and jails."

When we spoke with Van Buren in 2019 she shared, "We started a new practice together because we felt that traditional architecture and real estate development firms were not practicing in alignment...

Designing Justice + Designing Spaces on "unbuilding racism"

2020-06-05T14:47:00-04:00

Community development non-profit Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS) has published a vision designed around the idea of "unbuilding racism" in light of the growing movement to abolish police and prisons that has garnered national attention in the wake of the anti-racism and policy brutality protests that are currently griping the United States.

Writing in a Medium post, the group, which is led by Deanna Van Buren, explains that they are "grieving for the intolerable and constant deaths of black and brown people at the hands of the police, and all the other lives lost through the impacts of mass incarceration," adding, "This is why we are prison abolitionists."

Previously on Archinect: "Architect Deanna Van Buren on Designing Beautiful Spaces That 'Amplify Self-Care, Love, Restoration, and Respect'." The Designing Justice + Designing Spaces team with co-founders Kyle Rawlins and Deanna Van Buren third and fourth from the left. Photo by Oretola Thomas.

Speaking to competing de...

Deanna Van Buren on designing beyond incarceration

2020-03-10T18:58:00-04:00

Van Buren’s most ambitious undertaking so far is the reimagining of a hulking 471,000 square foot Detention Center in downtown Atlanta. [...] Van Buren has been working with social justice organizations and a mayoral task force to transform the site into an “Equity Center” that will incorporate financial literacy, job training, access to legal services and other community needs.

Writing in The New York Times, journalist Patricia Leigh Brown profiles Deanna Van Buren, co-founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS), an Oakland, California-based architecture and real estate development non-profit that is working to end mass incarceration.

Archinect profiled the work and practice of DJDS in a Studio Snapshot last year. In that interview, Van Buren explained the nature of her practice: "Our office is rooted in creative strategies that are empathic and always include deep listening to those most impacted by the problems we are seeking to solve. We are in service to those who have had no voice in the built environment. We are a relatively new practice so the thesis hasn’t changed much, but has certainly become more refined."