Wimot 'Bill' Gilland served as Head of the University of Oregon Department of Architecture 1972-77, and as Dean of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts 1981-1991. In the interim, Bill spent 6 months living in a VW Camper with his wife Mary and family, studying historical and contemporary architecture - one of a lifelong series of study and travel sabbaticals throughout Europe. Activities related to design education included work with ACSA, where he served in several national offices including President 1984-85; and a term on the NAAB Board 1988-91, as Secretary/Treasurer 1989-90.
In 1998, Bill assumed a post-tenure appointment at Oregon, continuing to teach on a part-time basis while gradually relocating to Seattle, where he developed two studio projects based on the South Lake Union Maritime Heritage Center and the Pratt Fine Arts Center. Most recently (2005) he has designed a house for himself and Mary on Whidbey Island near sailing waters, with completion expected in early Spring 2005.
James Harris FAIA of Tacoma sponsored Bill's nomination to the AIA College of Fellows, resulting in his 1992 induction.
Bill Gilland grew up in the Finger Lakes area of New York State, and took both the undergraduate and the graduate degree (1960) in architecture from Princeton University. His education included work with Swedish architect and city planner Sven Markelius in Stockholm, and as a guide in the architecture section at the American Pavilion at the Brussels Worlds Fair in 1958. Bill came West in a 1953 Plymouth, where after a time he and a group of peers opened AGORA, ARCHITECTS AND PLANNERS in the Bay Area, undertaking campus buildings among other projects. He began teaching part-time at Berkeley in 1964, and by 1969 had accepted a full-time tenured faculty position at the University of Oregon. Teaching interests concentrated in Design Studio, Design Process and Methods, Spatial Order, Issues of Architectural Regionalism, and 20th Century Nordic Architecture.