Stop Building Prisons

<p>For Breezeblock #30, editor Christin Hu chats with community organizers Maggie Luna, Avalon Betts-Gaston, and Sashi James about their recent action at HDR (Henningson, Durham, Richardson), one of the largest architecture firms in the world, who are responsible for designing hundreds of prisons. Together, they discuss the reasons why architects should refuse to take part in the building of prisons and what they can do instead.</p> <p>On June 24, The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls, Families for Justice as Healing, Lioness: Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance, Design as Protest, Texas Statewide Leadership Council, and Illinois Alliance for Reentry & Justice organized an action outside of HDR’s office in Chicago (same day as the AIA conference) demanding that this international Architecture, Engineering, and Planning firm stop designing prisons (they have designed over 275). This marks just one of many actions inviting HDR to work with (rather than against) communities over the past years.</p>