PRESS
Magazines and books in which we have appeared
Maine Home +Design
The Sun and the Site
Edited by Rebecca Falzano
May 2010
In his book The Perfect House, Witold Rybcynski observes: “Buildings reveal themselves slowly; they must be seen at different times of day and under different conditions, in sunlight and darkness, in fog and rain. Houses particularly should be appreciated in small doses. For days on end you may be unaware of your surroundings, then one day you stop what you are doing, look around, and indescribably but unmistakably you feel that everything, including yourself, is in the right place. That is the experience of architecture.
Robert Knight of Knight Associates approaches architecture in this way; in his early discussions with clients, he tries to view the house that is imbedded in their memories as “home,” believing that will form the basis of a building that feels right for them.
FINE HOMEBUILDING
The House in Alice’s Field
An architect explains why he built a small house and what he has to give up to get it
By Robert Knight
Summer 1997
So we have this wonderful hay field rimmed with old oak trees that slides down onto a peninsula in the Bagaduce River about halfway up the Maine coast. And the house needs to exploit it and live up to it, to be as wonderful as the site so that we enhance this place rather than detract from it.
Fine Homebuilding
Building Smaller, for Now
By Robert Knight
September 2001
The September 2001 issue of Fine Home Building features an article writen by Robert Knight on building homes which can later be expanded. Titled “Building Smaller, for Now”, the article is on page 88, and features two of our recent homes. The article will also be reprinted in a book entitled “Small Homes” that Taunton is releasing in the Spring of 2003.
Fine Homebuilding
Did Starting Small Work Out?
By Robert Knight
Spring/Summer 2011
In the late 1990s, my firm designed two projects that tackled the problem of how to start using your land when you’re not ready to spend the money for your dream house. This story is about how one of them, the little Greek-revival farmhouse that was phase 1 of a larger home, worked out.
ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST
In the Shingle Style
by Mildred F. Schmertz
August 1998
It is not every day that an architect is asked to design a brand-new Shingle Style house that is to possess an authentic, late-nineteenth-century look combined with twentieth-century livability.
Maine Boats, Homes & HarboRS
Easier on the Planet
By Robert Knight, Photographs by Robert Perron
February/March 2010 Issue 108 – These five houses (all designed by my firm and built within the last few years) typify the various aspects that people seem to want from their homes these days- including to be easier on the planet while getting more for their money. At the core of these Maine homes is one simple fact: their owners love being in them, and long to come back to them after time away.
Fine HomebuildinG
A contract that makes everybody happy
by Robert Knight
Summer 2006
In terms of making clients happy, the most important events in a custom residential project are picking a builder and structuring a contract.
Fine HomebuildinG
How Big is a Square Foot?
By Robert Knight
This article originaly appeared in Fine HomeBuilding Magazine. This modified version includes a spread sheet of house costs.
Fine HomebuildinG
Great Ideas
By Robert Knight
2012
Fitting the required amenities into a small bathroom can be a big design challenge. With limited wall space, windows and the valuable daylight and views they provide can easily find their way out of a design in favor of more functionally valuable items such as linen closets, showers, and vanity mirrors.
A House on the Water
Inspirations for Living at the Water’s Edge
by Robert Knight
October 2003
Living in a house on the water is an almost universal desire. People are naturally drawn to the water — both for recreation and relaxation — and sites on the water sell quickly. A House on the Water is in bookstores now.
AIA Maine News
Renovation Windswept
By Robert Knight
5/2011
We are doing a lot of renovation work these days—well not a lot, nobody that I know is doing a lot of anything if they are residential architects. But if you have work, it’s probably renovations.Renovations interest me because I am joining something that is already happen- ing, and may have been happening for a long time—so while there is room to insert new ideas, I should be singing along with the melody of the existing building, and it’s fun to try and learn that melody.
Maine Home +Design
The Best Laid Plans
Edited by Susan Grisanti
December 2012
The existing camp was quite charming on the inside but kind of dull on the outside, and it could not be upgraded to a year-round home because it had been built for summer use only and had no real foundation. Because the site was extremely restricted, the local planning board allowed the owners to build a new house on the existing footprint, even though that footprint was close to the water. While expanding the house by the allowed 30 percent, the architects attempted to keep the intimate cottage-sized scale of the original building. They also worked to maximize the west-facing views over the bay that make the site so spectacular.