Ellen Dunham-Jones: Retrofitting suburbia

Ellen Dunham-Jones is an award-winning architect and professor of architecture and urban design at the Georgia Institute of Technology. A leading authority on suburban redevelopment, she lectures widely, conducts workshops with municipalities and consults on individual projects.

She and co-author June Williamson wrote Retrofitting Suburbia; Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (Wiley & Sons, 2009, updated paperback edition in 2011). The book’s documentation of successful retrofits of vacant big box stores, dead and thriving malls, and aging office parks into more sustainable places has received significant media attention in The New York Times, NPR, Harvard Business Review, Urban Land, Planning, Architectural Record and other venues. The book received a PROSE award from the American Association of Publishers, was featured in Time Magazine’s March 23, 2009 cover story, “10 ideas changing the world right now” and is the subject of her 2010 TED talk.

She has published over 50 articles linking contemporary theory and practice, serves as co-peer review editor of the journal Places and is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors of the Congress for the New Urbanism. She received undergraduate and graduate degrees in architecture from Princeton University and taught at UVA and MIT before joining Georgia Tech’s faculty to serve as Director of the Architecture Program from 2001-2009.