Bloomberg CityLab’s Zach Mortice talked to DJDS’s Deanna Van Buren about the challenges of transforming closed jails into spaces that benefit communities devastated by mass incarceration.
Deanna Van Buren tells Bloomberg: “When you have a system that at its root is structurally racist, your beautification of the infrastructure is not actually dealing with the real issues. As designers, we have to be critical of what systems we’re propping up and what we’re supporting, because architects have always just supported and propped up systems of power.”
[In the photo above: DJDS organized public meetings where community members came together to imagine a new future for the Atlanta City Detention Center.]
