Joseph Smith
Part-Time Instructor
Joe Smith, AIA, is an Athens-based preservation architect and educator. With over 25 years in practice, Joe’s specialty is the rehabilitation of buildings that are often considered “too far gone,” with special emphasis on vernacular and utilitarian architecture. Since 2005, Joe has participated in the rehabilitation of more than one hundred historic structures in the state of Georgia.
In 2017 Joe co-founded Architectural Collaborative in Athens with partners Lori Bork Newcomer and Gabe Comstock. As a team, their rehabilitation and restoration work has won several Georgia Trust preservation awards well as recognition from the AIA Atlanta and the AIA Georgia. In 2022 the Madison HPC recognized Joe for outstanding leadership in preservation.
Joe has served on the Madison Historic Preservation Commission and the Georgia National Register Review Board, the latter of which he chaired in 2019-20. Most recently, Joe wrote the chapter on the antebellum period for the Georgia Trust’s book on the architecture of our state.
