Trailblazing architect and inclusion advocate Beverly Willis passes away at 95

Trailblazing architect, industrial designer, and inclusion advocate Beverly Willis passed away on October 1st in Connecticut from complications related to Parkinson’s disease, the New York Times reported on Monday. She was 95. The founder of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation leaves behind a legacy of wide-reaching philanthropic efforts, espousing throughout her career the position of women in the architectural and engineering trades. She pursued a prescient design agenda and building activities that served as valuable early lessons in the development of accessibility concepts, adaptive reuse, historic preservation, and sustainable design. Willis was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1928, coming of age in a post-war America defined by “self-made people” and influenced heavily by figures such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. She studied engineering at Oregon State University before transferring to the University of Hawaii to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and then ...

Trailblazing architect and inclusion advocate Beverly Willis passes away at 95

Trailblazing architect, industrial designer, and inclusion advocate Beverly Willis passed away on October 1st in Connecticut from complications related to Parkinson’s disease, the New York Times reported on Monday. She was 95.

The founder of the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation leaves behind a legacy of wide-reaching philanthropic efforts, espousing throughout her career the position of women in the architectural and engineering trades. She pursued a prescient design agenda and building activities that served as valuable early lessons in the development of accessibility concepts, adaptive reuse, historic preservation, and sustainable design.

Willis was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1928, coming of age in a post-war America defined by “self-made people” and influenced heavily by figures such as Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. She studied engineering at Oregon State University before transferring to the University of Hawaii to complete a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and then ...