Beard died in Wellington on 30 October 2017. Elected a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Architects in 1969, Beard was closely involved in the institute at a national level, serving on the education committee (1968–1970), publications committee (1965–1969), journal committee (1963–1964) and library and journal committee (1964–1965). He was the president of the Wellington Architectural Centre (1962), a committee member (1958–1960, 1982–1986), and was honoured as a life member. His service to the design community also included involvement with the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Designers, and the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects, of which he was made an Honorary Fellow in 1998. Beard was a significant New Zealand architect. In his work at the Ministry of Works he influenced a generation of architects (including people such as Bill Alington). He was one of the few New Zealand architects of his generation to undertake postgraduate study at an overseas university, studying town planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and then landscape architecture at Harvard University. He was thus one of the few qualified town planners and landscape architects working in New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s. It was not until 1969 that Lincoln University established the Postgraduate Diploma in Landscape Architecture – the first full-time course in landscape architecture in Australasia. Beard also made a significant contribution to concrete apartment design in Wellington in the late 1950s and early 1960s, examples of which exist in Hamilton Road, Hataitai, Tapiri Street/William Street, Hataitai, Brougham Street, Mount Victoria, and Wellington Road, Kilbirnie. These were exercises in providing both liveable modern homes and efficient planning, at a time when single unit detached dwellings were the norm. He is perhaps best known within architectural circles for his significant contribution to Wellington's inner city examples of Brutalist architecture, namely the Hannah Playhouse (1973) and PSIS Investment House (1976). His work on the Katherine Mansfield Birthplace is also significant as a contribution to New Zealand's national cultural heritage. This work included various reports and research work. The unpublished material is held within the Alexander Turnbull Library Manuscripts Collections. Published material on this work includes: Beard, James Mansfield Precinct (Wellington [N.Z.]: New Zealand Heritage and Conservation Trust and the Wellington Heritage and Conservation Trust, [2005]). Katherine Mansfield Birthplace received a New Zealand Tourism Award in 1994. Beard contributed to New Zealand architecture and landscape design and architecture, as well as town planning throughout his career, both as a professional and as an astute and committed commentator in institute and organisational publications such as: New Zealand Architect/Architecture New Zealand, The Landscape, Cuttings, and Off Centre.