Assigned to the project for the Unité d'Habitation, then under construction in Marseille, France, Woods met the Azerbaijan-born Greek architect George Candilis, with whom he would later form a lasting partnership.
With Candilis and the engineer Vladimir Bodiansky, Woods designed and built housing throughout North Africa during his tenure as head of the Casablanca office of ATBAT-Afrique (Atelier des Bâtisseurs).
Commissioned by the welfare state to design thousands of suburban housing units, Woods and Candilis joined with the Yugoslavian architect Alexis Josic to create in 1956 the firm Candilis-Josic-Woods.
Among the firm's major built projects were the extension of the village of Bagnols-sur-Cèze and the development of the quarter of Le Mirail in Toulouse in France and, with Manfred Schieldhelm, the Free University in Berlin.
He published numerous essays on urban themes, including explanations of his concepts of "stem" and "web", and participated in the 1968 Milan Triennale at the invitation of the Italian architect and fellow Team X member Giancarlo de Carlo.