My daily drive home to Plaza-Midwood along elevated I-277 gives me a wonderful view of uptown. As summer passed into fall, the view almost killed me.

Distracted, my car weaving, I kept trying to figure out Hearst Tower, the 46-story office building under construction at Sixth and College. "Does the building get larger at the top? Do the walls flare out?" That's what I wondered as I looked and tried to stay in my lane.

Judging from questions I've heard from others, I wasn't the only one wondering. What made for a collective scratch of the head was our expectation that tall buildings get slimmer as they rise, this tapering emphasizing the quality every skyscraper wants - to soar.

Now that uptown's second-tallest structure has topped out, you can see the building does get wider as it rises. You can also see how the designers did it. The Atlanta architects at Smallwood, Reynolds, Stewart, Stewart & Associates made a bold stroke by going against the long-standing slimmer-is-best convention.

Why they did demonstrates how architects respond to the demands of client and site.

Hearst Tower is a Bank of America project, the third major building by the bank between Trade and Sixth Streets. Cesar Pelli designed the flagship 60-story corporate headquarters at Trade and Tryon. The Atlanta firm did the 30-story IJL Financial Center at Fifth and Tryon. It's across from the Hearst Tower, which fronts College Street but has a presence on Tryon.

"Our charge in designing this building was similar to IJL - a building compatible with the corporate center from an aesthetic standpoint but not a form that would mimic it," said Chuck Hull, principal-in-charge for the Atlanta firm.

A tower that overshadowed Pelli's elegant building wouldn't do. According to Hull, much discussion went into how tall the new skyscraper should be before a relatively subservient 46-story structure was chosen.

But neither the client nor the designers wanted a shrinking violet. You don't want a tall building to cringe.

Using models of the existing buildings and proposed designs for the new, the architects studied the problem extensively. They decided a tapered building, or a stepped-back "wedding cake" design, would look too "diminutive" next to the Pelli building.

"Taking a bolder approach to the design gave (Hearst Tower) a massiveness, a weight that allowed it to stand up to a taller object," said Hull.

Contrary to what my eyes told me as I looked at the rising building, the walls do not flare as the building goes higher. Rather, at the corners of the building are triangular extensions made of glass and aluminum that project further as they go up.

The tower's floor plates actually get larger the higher they go.

"There's a close to 2,000-square-foot difference between the smallest and largest," said Hull. (The extensions) project out about five inches per floor. It's fairly subtle in the structure but it creates a rather dramatic effect from the exterior."

The flaring is most dramatic when looking at the building from a distance. Catch sight of it at an angle from the Central Avenue bridge and its big shoulders muscle into the sky.

The designers used the triangular shape of the extensions to generate other design elements.

They noticed Pelli had used art deco details in his building. They also wanted to use the look of that 1920s style, with its emphasis on the rectilinear and symmetrical. After looking at art deco designs, of buildings and even glassware, they decided to adapt the triangle motif from the extensions.

So the entrance canopies on College Street and Tryon Street are triangular, looking vaguely like pointed Gothic arches. Triangular shapes seemingly like Gothic tracery appear at the top floors where the walls and extensions meld with the rounded top that will contain the mechanical attic.

And at the fourth level, above the black granite that visually anchors the building to the ground, precast concrete panels have a bold design made of interlocking triangles.

These and other flourishes on the lower floors relate the building to the street. That, in addition to its look on the skyline, is an important issue for a tall building.

What the tower does for the street will become more clear next spring when it is finished and the plaza facing Tryon Street, as well as the shop-filled College Street façade, are complete.

For now, we can enjoy the building's profile as the gathering winter dusk shapes its silhouette against streaks of pink and rose.

As Hull said, "The flaring-out of the shaft of the building really is a skyline gesture." architecture