Suburban Retrofits: What Works, What Doesn’t?

In the last few years, it’s been fun to shift the focus from, “Yes, retrofitting is possible and here’s why it’s good” to “Okay, you guys are doing this. Are the results good enough? How do we raise the bar?” In particular, specific suggestions on how to address the problems perceived with “instant urbanism” often associated with suburban retrofit. 

In this webinar, Ellen Dunham-Jones will add some rather precise observations about the distinctions between 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation retrofits, and how we might raise the bar on next generation sprawl repair.

Ellen Dunham-Jones is an award-winning licensed architect and professor teaching contemporary architectural and urban design studios and theory at Georgia Tech. As co-author with June Williamson of Retrofitting Suburbia; Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs (Wiley & Sons, 2009) her work has received significant media attention in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Harvard Design Magazine, Urban Land, Planning, Architectural Record, and TEDx. The book received the 2009 PROSE award for architecture and urban planning from the American Association of Publishers and was featured in Time Magazine’s March 23, 2009 cover story, “10 ideas changing the world right now.”