Beverly Willis

Beverly Willis, FAIA, (born February 17, 1928), is an American architect known for her design achievements, her development of new technology and her philanthropic efforts on behalf of architects, urban planning and public policy. Willis played a major role in the development of many creative and professional concepts important to American cities and American architecture. Her best known built work is the San Francisco Ballet Building (see project details) in San Francisco, California. She is the founder of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, a non-profit organization expanding knowledge of women's contributions to the built environment.

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Early life

Willis was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, daughter of Margaret Elizabeth Porter, a nurse, and Ralph William Willis, an oil industry entrepreneur and an agriculturalist. Brother Ralph Gerald Willis (1930–1999) served in the United States Army and later retired to the Fiji Islands.

During World War II, at age 15, Willis learned to fly a single-engine propeller plane in order to qualify for the Women’s Air Service. Shortly thereafter, Willis’ mother, then divorced, moved to Portland, Oregon, where Willis graduated from high school. Willis studied engineering at Oregon State University from 1946-48. She graduated from the University of Hawaii in 1954 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with honors.

Willis Atelier

Upon graduation from the University of Hawaii, Willis founded the Willis Atelier in Waikiki, where she continued the mural and fresco work begun in college under the training of Jean Charlot. In 1956, Willis pioneered a technique for sand cast mural panels, including a panel used in the Shell Bar at the Royal Hawaiian Hilton. The Shell Bar, which Willis also designed, became a backdrop in the television series Hawaiian Eye.

Beverly Willis Architects

In 1958, Willis opened Beverly Willis Architects, an architectural office in San Francisco, California. Beverly Willis Architects embraced the industrial design axiom that good design "sells." Retail stores were among the firm’s first clients. Widely published in retail trade magazines, Willis became known as one of America's leading store designers. Willis was among the first architects to take advantage of trade publications and direct mail pamphlets to solicit new clients.

As the firm grew to a staff of 35, its projects evolved. Willis became a pioneer in the historic preservation and reuse movement in San Francisco in the 1960s.

In the early 1970s, Beverly Willis Architects was one of the first firms to develop computer software for planning and architectural use. CARLA, Computerized Approach to Residential Land Analysis, was written and applied in-house. Used in large-scale land use planning projects, 100 acres (0.40 km2) to 1,000 acres (4 km2) in size, CARLA promoted environmental planning techniques that helped avoid property damage due to flash floods, mudslides and unstable soil, relying on a site’s natural terrain to guide building placement. In Honolulu, CARLA was used to plan, engineer and design Aliamanu Valley, a community that housed 11,500 people in 525 buildings.

Significant Buildings

Awards and honors

Awards

Honors

Exhibitions

Research

Beverly Willis founded the Architecture Research Institute, a "think/act tank", in 1995. The Architecture Research Institute develops and advocates urban policies to make large global cities more livable. After the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11, the Architecture Research Institute founded R.Dot, Rebuild Downtown Our Town. R.Dot mobilized hundreds of designers, professionals and people from all walks of life to create a coordinated response that helped guide the rebuilding effort and established a planning framework for the city of New York.

Symposiums

Papers

Architecture Research Institute

R.Dot

Philanthropy

Beverly Willis’ philanthropic efforts include her work as a founding trustee of the National Building Museum in Washington, DC; creating the Architecture Research Institute, in New York City (1995); co-founding R.Dot, Rebuild Downtown Our Town (2001); and establishing the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation(2002).

Bibliography

References

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