Contract - January/February 2014 - 68

Trisha Wilson has focused
much of her time in the last
two decades in South Africa,
where she has fallen in love
with the landscape and the
people. After designing
the Palace of the Lost City,
she founded The Wilson
Foundation and started
the Waterberg Academy
for children.
The Wilson Foundation has
provided scholarships and
funding for the construction
of the classroom building
(opposite, bottom), and a
new Library, Science, and
Technology Center (opposite,
top) in 2009 in Vaalwater,
South Africa.

By Jean Nayar

68

A tenacious drive has propelled Tricia Wilson throughout her life.
That drive has been evident from her start as a designer-as a young
female sole-practitioner in Dallas in the early 1970s, no less-to the
development of a global design firm of more than 350 people. It is
also evident today in her continued efforts to serve the neediest
young populations of South Africa through The Wilson Foundation
with education and healthcare aid. After spending most of her career
designing some of the most luxurious hotels and resorts in the world,
and mentoring leading hospitality designers along the way, Wilson is
now focused on her foundation. For her life's achievements, Contract
is pleased to honor Trisha Wilson with the 2014 Legend Award.
The Wilson Foundation (see story about the foundation, page
144) is a non-profit organization she created in 1997 to improve the
lives of underprivileged children in both Africa and the United States.
"The foundation provides scholarships and supports a staff that
educates about 140 children a year at the Waterberg Academy, an
independent school we helped to establish in Vaalwater, South Africa,"
says Wilson, who designed and helped build not only the school, but
also healthcare clinics, a computer lab, a science lab, and a library in the
remote village.
Supporting the facilities and community programs in Vaalwater
is only one of the ways Wilson channels her vast reservoir of creative
energy these days after stepping down as president and CEO of Wilson
Associates in early 2013. Her philanthropic endeavors have also spread
to other parts of South Africa, and more recently, to Las Colonias in
South Texas near the Texas-Mexico border, where the most basic

living necessities, such as potable water and sewer systems,
electricity, paved roads, and safe and sanitary housing are
sorely lacking.
While Wilson's current passion revolves around crafting
environments and programs that uplift disadvantaged children and
their communities, her instinctive regard for humanity is arguably
one of the most important keys to her success as an internationally
renowned designer and leader of a worldwide design firm. It is also
one of the qualities that inspired Manfred Steinfeld, her colleague,
mentor, and friend, to help launch her career in the late-1960s. "She
has achieved so much-not just for herself but also for the design
community as a whole," says Steinfeld, who met Wilson when he was
CEO of the furniture manufacturing giant Shelby Williams and she was
designing her first restaurants in Dallas. "After becoming so successful,
she understood it was important to give back."
Beginning on her own in Texas
Wilson's success began to take shape in the mid-1970s, a time when
few women worked as commercial interior designers, let alone as
presidents of their own companies. Though the Texas native graduated
with a bachelor of science degree from the School of Architecture at
the University of Texas in Austin, Wilson never really expected to put
her training into practice and become one of the most sought-after
hospitality designers in the world. "In that era, women got married
and were supported by their husbands," she says. "I got my degree
so that I could become a teacher if I needed to earn a living myself."

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