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PKPR Clients

Designing Justice + Designing Spaces

PKPR has represented Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS) since 2018, securing national and international media coverage that has established founder Deanna Van Buren as a visionary at the intersection of architecture and criminal justice reform. Our work has led to major features in The New York Times, Financial Times, and NBC News, as well as thought leadership placements in Politico, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and other policy-shaping outlets.

We’ve positioned DJDS as a go-to voice on the future of incarceration and restorative justice, securing interviews, op-eds, and speaking opportunities with top-tier media such as The Atlantic and Fast Company. These placements have helped influence key audiences, including policymakers, urban planners, and philanthropists.

By raising the visibility of DJDS’s mission to design alternatives to prison, PKPR has helped shift the national conversation around justice reform and expanded support for the organization’s pioneering work.

Designing Justice + Designing Spaces in the News

DJDS in KQED, SF Examiner, Axios

PKPR client Designing Justice + Designing Spaces is transforming the justice system—one space at a time. Their latest project with Community Works in San Francisco was featured in KQED, The San Francisco Examiner and Axios is redefining what healing looks like, using trauma-informed design to create environments that support dignity, restoration, and community-led change.

DJDS in Prism

Designing Justice + Designing Spaces was featured in Prism for their Installation of “Mobile Refuge Rooms,” at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Co-Founder, Deanna Van Buren aims to answer the central question, “What can we build instead of prisons?” by constructing spaces for restorative justice and compassionate reentry.

DJDS in Governing

Deanna Van Buren, Co-Founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces published an op-ed for Governing. Van Buren highlights proposed solutions for repurposing prisons and transforming them into thriving communities.

DJDS in Design Milk

Designing Justice + Designing Spaces was featured in Design Milk for their collaboration with Formr on the Healing Forest Table Collection.

DJDS in ABC7

Co-Founder and Executive Director, Deanna Van Buren of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces went on ABC7 to talk about the Healing Forest Tables, where every purchase creates ripples of change.

DJDS in MSNBC

MSNBC published a wonderful profile of Deanna Van Buren by reporter Julia Pepitone – “This architect went from creating luxury malls to imagining a world without prisons.”

NewsOne profile of DJDS

Check out this in-depth profile in NewsOne – “Oakland Architect And Activist Deanna Van Buren Uses Design As A Means For Restorative Justice.”

DJDS in Shondaland

Deanna Van Buren, the founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces, is profiled today in Shondaland as part of their Black History Now series.

DJDS in Bloomberg CityLab

Bloomberg CityLab’s Zach Mortice talked to DJDS’s Deanna Van Buren about the challenges of transforming closed jails into spaces that benefit communities.

DJDS in New York Times

In a New York Times piece examining post-Rikers plans, Deanna Van Buren of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces urged New York to invest in restorative justice spaces instead of pursuing “humane jail design.”

Deanna Van Buren on WNYC

Deanna Van Buren of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces discusses how architects are taking the lead in building alternatives to prisons.

DJDS in Ms. + Fast Company

As the debate grows for defunding police and shifting financing, Designing Justice + Designing Spaces is working toward a world without prisons.

DJDS in Fast Company

Check out the story in Fast Company today: This Atlanta jail will transform into a center for justice and equity.

DJDS TED Talk

PKPR has secured a series of profiles looking at how Designing Justice + Designing Spaces is using design to end mass incarceration.

DJDS in Bloomberg, AD

In 2017, PKPR client Deanna Van Buren delivered a TED Talk – What a World Without Prisons Could Look Like— that has been viewed more than one million times.