John Ellis
Lecturer in City and Regional Planning
- Biography
John is an architect, urban designer and teacher with more than 40 years of experience. He is currently a Partner at Mithun | Solomon in San Francisco.
As an Anglo Californian, John brings his early experiences in England to his many years as a Bay Area resident. John has worked for several firms in San Francisco including KMD architects for ten years where he was project designer for buildings such as the Oakland Federal Building and Plaza Park Tower in Sacramento. Before joining Mithun, John was Director of Urban Design at Daniel Solomon Design Partners, where he directed numerous projects focused on sustainable urbanism. John’s work involves developing strategies for revitalization, whether at the scale of a downtown, such as Hayward, California; a corridor that links several neighborhoods such as the Sacramento Riverfront Master Plan; or the development of a distinct neighborhood or site such as the master plan for rebuilding the public housing at Jordan Downs, Los Angeles. He led the team for the award winning Coyote Valley Vision Plan for a sustainable transit –oriented community in San Jose for the Greenbelt Alliance. Recent work includes a master plan for a 1,200 unit demonstration project of affordable housing in the new city of Binhai outside Tianjin, China.
John has taught for many years and in 2012 was the inaugural Visiting Professor of Sustainable Urban Design at Cambridge University.
- Courses Taught
- CY PLAN 140 – Urban Design: City-Building and Place-Making
- CY PLAN 248 – Advanced Studio: Urban Design/Environmental Planning