Media Kit
Content provided for press below. Authors’ headshots and bios, book covers for download, and images/illustrations from the publication for download, including captions.
June Williamson is a professor of architecture at the City College of New York's Spitzer School of Architecture. She has consulted, taught and practiced architecture and urban design in Boston, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Los Angeles and now, New York City. She wrote "Designing Suburban Futures: New Models from Build a Better Burb," documenting an urban design ideas competition for Long Island, as well as co-authored publications with Ellen Dunham-Jones.
Ellen Dunham-Jones is professor of architecture and directs the urban design degree at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She was voted one of the world’s 100 most influential urbanists by Planetizen and hosts the Redesigning Cities podcast. She welcomes opportunities to engage students in producing retrofit proposals and in-between classes is available to lecture, conduct workshops, consult on projects, and address database research inquiries for a fee.
Book CoverS
Illustrations from Case Studies in Retrofitting Suburbia
Including captions
I.3-3 - The Villages
Residents walk, bike, and drive cars and golf carts through Lake Sumter Landing, one of three themed town centers in The Villages of Florida, a massive and fast-growing age-restricted development between Orlando and Ocala. What lessons from successful “active-adult” communities—about amenities, infrastructure, and social life—can we integrate into the lifelong community model? Source: Photo by June Williamson, 2018.
I.4-3 - New Jersey
The commercial epicenter of the South Asian community in New Jersey, Oak Tree Road runs through the towns of Iselin and Edison. Shopfronts and strip malls are filled with jewelers, sari stores, and restaurants and specialty food markets. Source: Photo by Belma Fisha, 2018.
I.5-7a - Grow Desoto
A business incubator in a suburban strip mall? Developer Monte Anderson and the City of DeSoto, Texas, converted a former hardware store into Grow DeSoto Market, regreened a swath of the parking lot into a twinkle-lit networking space with food trucks and plan to build 20 loft apartments on the side. Source: Photo by Phillip Jones, 2019.
I.6-3 - Mesa
Revitalizing a suburban corridor into the Fiesta District in Mesa, Arizona, involved a road diet with widened sidewalks and stormwater swales that irrigate new trees. Urban heat island effects are further mitigated by paseo pocket parks offering cooling, seating, and night lighting as shown here, with the mid-block shade and fountain at the entrance to a big box store renovated into high rent office space. Source: Photo by Ellen Dunham-Jones, 2015.
II.6-4 - BLVD
The rambla has many lives. While it is typically used for parking, two blocks are converted weekly into a farmer’s market. For holidays and festivals, the entire length becomes a parade and gathering space. Source: Photo by Ellen Dunham-Jones, 2017.
II.6-6 - BLVD Tea Room
Business owner Gabrielle Ratcliff considered space at the mall, but instead chose to open the Modern Tea Room on The BLVD: “I preferred the vibe here. It’s so much more locally-focused.” The solar panel shop next door reflects the popularity of the locally run solar power authority. Source: Photos by Ellen Dunham-Jones, 2017.
II.6b - BLVD Tea Room
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II.8-1 - Guthrie Green - DIAGRAM
Before and after diagrams of the Guthrie Green block (at center) in the Tulsa Arts District and the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park (at the top). The introduction of the two parks on former parking lots triggered many reinhabitation retrofits of existing buildings, and some new infill construction with a range of new uses. The Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission hopes to attract new development to neighboring Greenwood in association with the 100th anniversary in 2021. Source: Authors.
II.9-5 - Plaza Fiesta
Small booths and narrow aisles in the mercado at Plaza Fiesta in Chamblee, Georgia, originally the Buford-Clairmont Mall. Source: Photo by Phillip Jones, 2018.
II.10-6b - Domain
At The Domain in Austin, Texas, an office district retrofit, several downtown hip restauranteurs opened sister locations on Rock Rose, meeting part of their community benefits agreement and creating a popular entertainment destination on one of the new walkable “A streets.” Source: Photo by Phillip Jones, 2019.
II.11-6 - ACC Highland
Highland Greenway Park, on the left, is the first of three planned parks on former parking lots at the Highland Mall, in Austin, Texas. It features a community garden, picnic areas, and a fitness trail that will eventually loop the entire site and is here shown wrapping a new apartment building. On the right, the former Dillards department store’s cladding has been removed as it gets transformed into Austin Community College classrooms and KLRU-TV office and production facilities. Source: Photo by Phillip Jones, 2019.
II.12-1 - Mueller
The bright red Thinkery Children’s Museum adds a playful civic presence to the town center of Mueller, in Austin, Texas, the redevelopment of a former airport. It reinforces the particularly family-friendly urbanism in Mueller. Source: Photo by Phillip Jones, 2019.
II.12-2 - Mueller - DIAGRAM
Before and after “figure-field” diagrams of Mueller, in Austin, Texas. Source: Authors.
II.12-4b - Mueller
Mueller contains a wide variety of compact housing types and styles in close proximity to each other, including modern row houses that share an alley with traditional triplexes and share frontage on Branch Park with four-story apartments. Source: Photo by Phillip Jones, 2019.
II.18-3 - Fourth Ward
The former parking lots converted into Fourth Ward Park in Atlanta were excavated and sloped down to create an attractive stormwater pond and park that has attracted much new development around it, including new housing, 12-story office buildings, and, in the distance, the renovated brick Ponce City Market. The remaining parking lot is approved for a grand staircase connecting the park and the BeltLine and more tall buildings. Source: Photo by Phillip Jones, 2018.
II.19-3 - Peachtree Corners
In Technology Park, in Peachtree Corners, Georgia, a new 295-apartment complex with six buildings, replaced two 38-year-old office buildings. What it lacks in urban form it makes up for with active recreational spaces: a new bike trail, a cabana-lined pool, a dock on the lake, and a dog park. Source: Photo by Philip Jones, 2018.
II.20-6 - Walkers Bend
The housing at Walker’s Bend, a revived “zombie subdivision” in Covington, Georgia, is more mixed, and more affordable to lower-income residents, than originally planned. The Village at Walker’s Bend comprises 32 small rental houses around a common green and clubhouse. Source: Photo by Phillip Jones, 2018.
II.28-1 - Bell Works
The atrium at Bell Works is one quarter mile long and six-stories high. When tenants occupy leased space the gallery partitions walls are replaced with glass, affording views into the atrium. A massive translucent photovoltaic array installation on the sawtooth skylights provides 15% of the energy for the common spaces. A 186-room boutique hotel will be built on the roof. Source: Photo by Belma Fishta, 2018.
II.28-5a - Bell Works
Rebranded a “metroburb,” the ground floor of the atrium bustles with energy in its new reincarnation as Bell Works. Some of the regular events include morning yoga, happy hour drinks, and a farmers’ market. Bell Market draws customers from throughout the area. Source: Photos by Belma Fishta, 2018.
II.29-4a - Wyandanch
The Delano Stewart Plaza at Wyandanch on Long Island, designed by Olin Studio, is named for a longtime African American community activist. On opening day in 2018, dozens of local kids learned to ice skate on the seasonal rink, a focal point of the plaza. Source: Photos by Phillip Jones, 2018.
II.30-1 - Meriden Green - DIAGRAM
Before retrofitting, the urban renewal-era Meriden Hub mall sat squat in a parking lot, over a culverted brook (dashed lines in diagram). After retrofitting, the mall site is regraded into Meriden Green, with new housing, relocated subsidized housing, and a sophisticated piece of green infrastructure including a daylit brook and stormwater park. Source: Authors.
II.32-8 - Assembly Square
Elements of the public realm at Assembly Square, in Somerville, Massachusetts, are designed to support walking, biking, and transit use. Upcoming phases of the build-out are expected to add more enhancements, especially to access under the highway linking to adjacent neighborhoods. Source: Photos by June Williamson, 2016.