[1][2] Holford outwardly adopted the planning philosophies of Lewis Mumford and showed his appreciation for the architect Le Corbusier.

[7] In 1950 Holford, along with H Myles Wright produced a report for Cambridgeshire County Council titled "Cambridge Planning Proposals".

Holford designed significant individual buildings, including Clarendon House in Cornmarket Street, Oxford, which was built in 1956–57 for F.W.

Sir Nikolaus Pevsner commended Clarendon House in Oxford as one of the best recent buildings in the city's main shopping streets and showing "how this kind of job can be done tactfully and elegantly.

However, only part of Holford's concept plan was carried out between 1961 and 1967, foremost the Paternoster Square development between St Paul's churchyard and Newgate Street.

St Paul's churchyard and Newgate Street immediately north of one of the capital's prime tourist attractions was widely considered grim and an embarrassment.

In the mid-1950s the Robert Menzies Government of Australia asked Holford to report on the planning and development of Canberra, which had become disorganised due to the Great Depression, World War II and post-war economic stringency.

[14] William Holford and Partners worked with English landscape architect Sylvia Crowe on the design of Commonwealth Gardens in 1964.

One unfortunate legacy is the NCDC's acceptance of his recommendation that the proposed new Parliament House be built on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin, rather than on Capital Hill.