Ellen Dunham-Jones
Professor; Director, MS in Urban Design Program
Contact
Ellen Dunham-Jones
Professor; Director, MS in Urban Design Program
Education
A.B. in Architecture and Planning, Princeton University, 1980 summa cum laude
Master of Architecture, Princeton University, 1983, AIA Henry Adams Certificate
Registered Architect in New York state, 1987-2015
Keywords
Retrofitting Suburbia, Suburban Retrofits, Suburban Redevelopment, Dead Malls, New Urbanism, Autonomous Vehicles, Redesigning Cities
Biography
Ellen is Director of the Master of Science in Urban Design degree, an authority on sustainable suburban redevelopment, and a leading urbanist. Author of over 100 articles, she is co-author with June Williamson of the retrofitting suburbia book series documenting successful retrofits of aging big box stores, malls, and office parks into healthier and more sustainable places. Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs, (Wiley, 2009, 2011) received a PROSE award as the best architecture and urban planning book of 2009 and has been featured in The New York Times, Time Magazine, Harvard Business Review, NPR, PBS, TED and other prominent venues. Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges (Wiley, 2020) expands on the first book examining how new retrofits are helping communities disrupt automobile dependence, improve public health, support an aging population, leverage social capital for equity, compete for jobs, and add water and energy resilience.
Ellen serves on several national boards and committees, is former Chair of the Board of the Congress for the New Urbanism, lectures widely and conducts community workshops. In both her teaching and research she focuses on helping communities address new challenges that they were never designed for – whether that’s through her unique database of successful suburban retrofits or studio classes on anticipating autonomous vehicles, coping with climate change or suburban blight. She taught at UVA and MIT before joining Georgia Tech as Architecture Program Director from 2000-2009.
Statement of Teaching Interest
Ellen advises PhD students in urbanism and teaches both lecture/seminar and studio design courses. Her Theories of Urban Design and Retrofitting Suburbia classes attract a mix of urban design, architecture, city planning, real estate and public policy students. In her studio classes students work with real communities on ambitious redevelopment projects to meet local needs and inform discussion about alternatives.
Since 2018, she has hosted Redesigning Cities: The Speedwell Foundation Talks at Georgia Tech. The 48 episodes (so far) have brought experts in a wide array of disciplines to campus to discuss new strategies for helping cities respond to various new technologies and new challenges.
Statement of Research Interest
An authority on sustainable suburban redevelopment, Ellen maintains a unique database of over 2,500 suburban retrofits and is co-author with June Williamson (Professor at the Spitzer School of Architecture, City College of New York) of two award winning books: Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs, (2009) and a sequel, Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges (2021). Their documentation of successful retrofits and regreenings of aging car-dominated properties and corridors into more resilient, healthy, and community-serving places won them the 2025 Seaside Prize and has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, PBS, BBC, and other prominent venues. Ellen’s TED talk on the subject has over 800,000 views and she is consistently recognized in Planetizen’s crowdsourced survey as one of the world’s 100 most influential urbanists and received the Seaside Prize in 2025.
Ellen also studies the actual and potential impact of autonomous vehicles on urban and suburban form.
Host of REDESIGNING CITIES: The Speedwell Foundation Talks at Georgia Tech, video and podcast series with leading experts on a range of topics.
Ellen offers tips in “How to Build A Better Shopping Mall,” by Jesse Nichols for Grist in 2020.
Discussion of her retrofits database and efforts to measure their sustainable performance at the 2019 Georgia Tech Sustainability Showcase.
2019 interview by Wired on why malls are dying, with over 1.3 million views.
2019 lecture Retrofitting Suburbia for 21st Century Challenges at the University of Pennsylvania.
2019 interview on “Retrofitting Suburbia” with Greg Rogers for The Mobility Podcast.
2019 podcast Interview on “How a Community Transforms, Part 2” for What’s Next ATL.
2018 What’s Next ATL talk at the Atlanta Regional Commission’s State of the Region meeting.
2017 podcast with Adam Conover, host of TruTV’s Adam Ruins Everything, after Ellen’s cameo on the show.
“Retrofitting Suburbia: Public Space and Social Capital,” at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm in 2016.
“Why Urban Design Trumps Architecture,” 2015 Shoptalk interview with Nathan Koskovich AIA Atlanta’s Architecture and Design Center.
Voice of America 2015 podcast “Trapped! US Suburban Life Loses its Luster.”
Steve Inskeep’s 2014 interview on re-uses of dead shopping malls on NPR Morning Edition.
“Who Designs the City? Contemporary Debates in Urbanism,” Graduate School of Urban Studies and Planning, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia in 2013
Interview by Dr. Richard Jackson in his 2012 4-part PBS TV Series Designing Healthy Communities.
LinkedIn Learning course with outtakes from Gary Hustwit’s 2011 film Urbanized of Ellen speaking about New Urbanism, Retrofitting Suburbia, and Retail in Cities.
Ellen’s 2010 TEDx Atlanta talk on Retrofitting Suburbia was selected amongst the best TED talks by Huffington Post, Cyburbia, Archininja, Landscape Institute and TEDTalks Architecture playlist. It has over 760,000 views and was followed by a TED-NPR Radio Hour in 2012.
- Williamson, J., & Dunham-Jones, E, “Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia” in G. Gibson & R. Elliott (Ed.s) The Next Australian City: The Suburban Evolution (Connor Court, Brisbane). (The book won the 2024 Planning Institute of Australia’s Research Award for 2024)
- Wang, J., Dunham-Jones, E., & Akar, G., “Exploring the Influence of Driver’s Passengers Willingness Level to Take Autonomous Taxis – Evidence from the Seattle Metropolitan Area,” Case Studies on Transport Policy, 16,101212 (2024)
- Dunham-Jones E., “Retrofitting Suburbia for 21st Century Challenges,” in T. Hass (Ed.), Women Reclaiming the City, (Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2024)
- Williamson J., and Dunham-Jones E., Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Strategies for Urgent Challenges (Wiley, 2021) (Winner of EDRA Great Place Book Award 2021.)
2025 - Winner with June Williamson of The Seaside Prize, an annual award given to leaders in urban design
Architectural Record’s 2019-19 Woman Educator of the Year
#71 on Planetizen’s list of the Top 100 Most Influential Urbanists (of all time!)
1 of 6 faculty “Revolutionaries,” Georgia Tech Student Government Ass’n
Ellen’s students have won 12 placements in 8 years in the ULI Hines Student Competition
Fellow of the Congress for the New Urbanism
Fellow of the Brooks Byers Institute of Sustainable Systems, GA Tech
2010 Subaru Professor of Excellence for the College of Design, GA Tech
Retrofitting Suburbia won the PROSE award for Professional and Scholarly Excellence from the Association of American Publishers as the 2009 best book of the year in architecture and urban planning
Retrofitting Suburbia featured in Time Magazine March 23, 2009 Cover Story “10 ideas changing the world right now”
Guest Professor, Tongji University, China, 2014
Ogden Lecturer, Monash University, Australia, 2011
Visiting Fellow in Sustainable Urban Development, Simon Fraser University, Canada, 2010
Ax:son Johnson Visiting Professor, Lund University, Sweden, 2006-7