Retrofitting Suburbia with Ellen Dunham-Jones

Wednesday April 12, 12:30pm- 2:00pm, Atkinson Room 109 (Harry Crowe Room)

Co-author of the award-winning book, Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs, (Wiley, 2009, 2011) Ellen Dunham-Jones will share new case studies and research on how retrofits of prototypical suburban property types throughout North America are helping suburbs address 21st century challenges they were never designed for. She will draw on her database of over 1400 examples of dead malls, big box stores, office parks, garden apartments, etc., that have been, or are being, retrofitted into more sustainable, more equitable, and more resilient places.

Ellen Dunham-Jones is a professor of architecture at Georgia Tech and director of the MS in Urban Design degree. Her teaching and 60+ published articles address the intersection of contemporary theory and real estate practice. A leading authority on suburban redevelopment, she lectures widely and conducts workshops with municipalities. She and co-author June Williamson wrote Retrofitting Suburbia; Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (Wiley, 2009, 2011, mandarin edition 2013). The award-winning book’s documentation of successful retrofits of dead big box stores, malls, office parks, and other suburban property types into more sustainable places has received significant media attention in The New York Times, PBS, NPR, Harvard Business Review, Urban Land, TED and other venues. The Retrofitting Suburbia Case Studies: Designs for 21st Century Challenges is forthcoming.

This seminar series is presented by the Major Collaborative Research Initiative Global Suburbanisms as a lead up to the project's final conference, "After Suburbia: Extended Urbanization and Life on the Planet's Periphery."