An Infrastructure for Restorative Justice is a design studio founded by ARExA principals Darrick Borowski and Rik Ekström in 2020 in collaboration with the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Both Borowski and Ekström are adjunct professors in SVA’s Interior Design / Built Environments program.
In the spring of 2020, SVA ID/BE was invited to join other graduate and undergraduate design programs in New York City to envision design approaches to planned New York City borough-based jails, in lieu of the city’s infamous Rikers Island facility which was slated for closure in 2027. SVA students took a different approach, deciding that “better prisons” are not enough.
As educators, training future designers of the built environment, this research team set out to go deeper, to investigate how we might leverage our cities – our streets, sidewalks, buildings, and public spaces – to end mass incarceration, while promoting equity and beginning the process of healing in communities disproportionately affected by the U.S. carceral system.