They painted the yellow brick blue, oh my.

It had yellow brick. Not painted yellow, but yellow-yellow.


It's a Morningside pop-top, a 1959'er on .1336 acre with 1,259 square feet. A mid-century traditional? The quadruple window, the textured brick with deeply cut mortar, and red door gave it a non-trad edge.


It's not what they want today. But I always liked it. It was modest, livable for non jet-setters.

It's a fantastic location with a level walk to Alons and Doc Chey's and that makes of for a lot of square footage.

Before the housing crunch, they'd have torn it down. There are 3 fine teardowns across the street.


So they are popping the top, adding about 1,000 square feet, nothing McMansion about it. They didn't have to dig a basement, raise the first floor, or add a 2-car front facing garage.

This passes my grandma test: Would you send your grandmother out the get the mail?


They had a decision to make.


I think they chose well. When the neighbors get their pops topped, maybe in can go yellow again.


For now, it has a soft touch. You can see the crisp mortar line shadows. Those 4 windows still look cool.

Good work.

Paul Knight - J. Neel Reid Prize Winner, 2007

Paul Knight won the J. Neel Reid Prize for 2007. Read more about the prize and the winners here. Paul tweets as @PaulLKnight. He's the 2nd winner to tweet; @clayrokicki was first.



Paul's prize project was "The Legacy of Reid and Shutze - Bringing Rome to Atlanta..." Paul visited Rome, Tivoli, and California, sketching, photographing, and making measured drawings of the very same places visited by Reid and Shutze decades ago.


Neel Reid at Villa Albani 1907 (from J. Neel Reid, Architect by William R. Mitchell. Jr.) and Paul Knight at Villa Borghese 2007.

I met with Paul on December 29, 2011 at his "penthouse" desk atop Historical Concepts' Glenwood Park Office.


It's hard to believe that whole buildings come from these little desks. Of course there are some big tables too. Paul is an Intern Architect at HC, a few thousand hours and 7 exams from becoming a registered architect.

Paul finds Architecture, Finally
Paul was raised in Cornelia Georgia, about 20 miles southeast of Helen. He went to Habersham Central where he considered studying music before settling on astrophysics at Georgia Tech. Tech has a way of challenging expectations so Paul switched to Mechanical Engineering. That wasn't clicking either.

Tech is not a lovable place when things aren't clicking. Thank goodness for hall-mate Jessi Pierce (now at Historical Concepts) who suggested architecture.

That must have worked. After 9 1/2 years at Tech, cross enrollment at SCAD, and summer internships galore, Paul earned a Bachelor of Architecture, Master of Architecture, and Master of Regional and City Planning.

Paul Acquires a Taste for the Classicism and Wins a Shutze Award.
Paul took a studio at Tech, "Traditional Design Workshop," sponsored by Historical Concepts. Jonathan LaCrosse, the Neel Reid Prize winner in 2005 and designer at D. Stanley Dixon Architect taught the class. It worked.

Paul's rendering for the class won him the Shutze Emerging Classicist Award for 2010. Here is a bit of it.


Detail of Georgia Tech's old physics building.


Paul pulled it out of a portfolio to show me.

Paul Visits Italy and California for the Neel Reid Prize
Here are a few of Paul's sketches and duotone renderings:

Above: Villa Corsini on the left, Atlanta's Swan House on the right.





Above: There are epics of design, practice, and history in every baluster.


Fragment embedded in the wall at the American Academy.


Villa Medici

Paul Visits California for the Prize?
Paul postponed his trip to Italy and saved enough to visit California and was able to extend his study.


Paul holds the record for longest Reid Prize title, and there is a reason.

Shutze and Green took different lessons from Italy.


Paul went to California to see for himself.


Shutze and Reid applied their experience to a classical style, the Green's to Arts and Crafts. Here is their Gamble House.


Thanks to Paul for showing me around.

Remember: Paul tweets @PaulLKnight. His website is PaulLKnight.com. He works at Historical Concepts.