Deanna Van Buren

Deanna Van Buren is the Design Director and co-founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces (DJDS) and FOURM Design Studio, specializing in architecture and real estate development with the goal of addressing and ending mass incarceration. Her work focuses on combating the root causes of mass incarceration, such as poverty, racism, and unequal access to resources, through innovative infrastructure development.

Van Buren’s work includes designing spaces that support restorative justice and community building rather than perpetuating the traditional punitive justice system. Notable projects under her leadership include the Syracuse Peacemaking Center in New York and Restore, a multi-use hub in East Oakland for restorative justice and workforce development. DJDS also creates mobile resource centers that provide essential services to underserved communities and re-entry housing to support individuals transitioning out of incarceration.

A recognized leader in her field, Van Buren was awarded the Rauschenberg Artist as Activist fellowship to develop a prototype mobile resource village. Her educational background includes a BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University. She is also an alumnus of the Loeb Fellowship at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Her insights have been shared internationally, including a 2017 TEDWomen talk viewed over a million times, where she explored the potential for a world without prisons.