Biography
John G. Ellis MA, Dipl Arch, AIA, RIBA was a student at Cambridge under Sir Leslie Martin and Sandy Wilson. His architectural career started in the UK and for the last 35 years he has practiced in San Francisco. He is an architect, urban designer and teacher with a special focus on sustainability, housing and urban repair.
On graduating from Cambridge in 1970 he worked for several years with his former teacher, David Roberts, on projects such as the Fitzwilliam Museum Extension and the Music Room, Trinity Hall. He then worked for Richard MacCormac in London on a number of housing projects in Milton Keynes and Warrington New Towns.
Since 1977 John has lived and worked in the Bay Area in California. He was project designer while with KMD Architects on a number of large scale urban highrise projects including the award winning Oakland Federal Building and US Bank Plaza in Sacramento. While with Anshen + Allen he designed the Shanghai Far East International Building in Pudong, Shanghai.
For the last 20 years he has been a Principal and Director of Urban Design with Daniel Solomon Design Partners in San Francisco. Projects have included master plans for large scale public housing rebuilding at Othello Station in Seattle, a 2,100 unit plan for Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco and the 100 acre, 1,370 unit Jordan Downs in Watts, Los Angeles. Two urban design master plans have received Congress of the New Urbanism Charter Awards: one for Coyote Valley, a 55,000 population town near San Jose, and the Cannery Area master plan for Hayward, California.
John has been the lead designer on several large scale university planning projects including UC Berekely NE Quadrant, San Francisco State University and UC Los Angeles Northwest Campus.
John has taught at UC Berkeley for many years, including the Master of Urban Design (MUD) programme. He was also an Adjunct Professor at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco.
He has been a contributing writer for Architectural Review, London for many years.
