Designing Justice Designing Spaces

We are an oakland-based architecture and real estate development non-profit working to end mass incarceration through place-based solutions that address its root causes: poverty, racism, unequal access to resources, and the criminal Justice system itself. Our work counters the traditional adversarial and punitive architecture of justice--courthouses, prisons, and jails--by creating Spaces and buildings for restorative Justice, community building, and housing for people coming out of incarceration.our products and services include: (i) full architecture services, where we provide nonprofit service providers, community-based organizations, and local governments with affordable professional full architectural serivces; (ii) the djds institute, which does research & evaluation, concept development, advocacy & communications, toolkit(s), public speaking, concept development projects, and consulting; and (iii) real estate development, including purchasing and redeveloping properties, convening co-developer partnerships that build multi-use resource hubs within commercial projects, feasibility analysis for innovative housing models, and the ownership of real esate as an organization ourselves.at djds, we are building pilot projects that are essential to move us toward a world without prisons and jails. As an interdisciplinary creative firm, we combine expertise in architecture, real estate development, community engagement, and advocacy to develop prototype projects that will serve as models for building typologies that support the transformation of our communities and the transformation of our Justice system from punitive to restorative.