Use of color in architecture - industrial architecture perspective

ACA 2019, 2019

According to the father of Organic Architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright as rightly said, that the mother art is Architecture, without Architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization. Art and Architecture should live as a family or live as husband and wife. No Architecture is good without the application of art. A building without art is like Bread without butter or tea without sugar. The use of colour in Architecture has been effectively applied since the early ages in both India as well as Europe, Middle Eastern and Chinese cultures. In Italy, during the Baroque era, architecture was assigned the role of conveying emotions and captivating the imagination of the masses visiting churches. Colour played a vital role in fulfilling this architectural ambition. Following that trajectory of radical use of colour and blending it with his curvilinear fluid forms that were done by the master architect Antonio Gaudi during his time. He was perhaps the most radical in his experimentation of colour and architectural form and showcasing to the world the magic that could happen when the two combined. Colour plays a significant role in the perception of a space in the human mind. When lighter shades are used, it makes the space appear bigger. On the other hand, using darker shades make the same space look smaller. Hence colours can be used to adjust the proportion of a building space. In the Expression of material, we saw in the example of falling water that light painted materials seem lighter than dark coloured materials. Other visual effects of colour can make things look further away or more distant; larger or smaller; cooler or warmer. For example, a cool blue bathroom and warm red living room. This paper is a review of literature that were collected from documents, journals, books, periodical and other materials that will explore the key importance of art and appreciation of colours in Architecture.

2016

In the realisation of a colour design, or of a colour plan, every designer should have the availability of a set of basic tools to prevent him or her from performing prejudicial operations in the territory, in the landscape, in the city, in the neighbourhood, and in the individual building. The same designer should then know some rules in the colour choice that will enhance the built environment. The approach to colour selection depends on many factors, for example the building size and function, the combination of spaces, the urban form, the dimensions of streets, alleys, plazas, squares and so on, but especially the specificity of the place. By this we mean the history, traditions, culture, geographical location, the qualities and weaknesses, the range of possible design/conservation options and all those characteristics that distinguish one place from another. So it should be clear to the designer who faces a chromatic project, that he or she primarily needs a dedicated strategy,...

This paper aims to reveal the importance that the study of light and colour should take in the decisions of the architectural project from its beginning to its implementation on the working site. The colour among architects is often thought as something that is added at the end of the architectural process, often already at the working site, and when in doubt always using white. According to this idea, Werner Spillmann observed that colour decisions usually came when everything is already determined; that is, most often colour was considered in the very last moment within an extremely short time period without any consideration of the building structure, function and surroundings [2]. On the other hand, light is considered a mysterious and elusive entity, something that many architects talk about, but only few can really master. And if we consider artificial lighting, most of them rely on electrical engineers to control the space appearance when sunlight is not enough, or at nightime. At a time where it is increasingly impossible to control all the aspects of expertise, specific legislation and areas of knowledge that contribute to the development of an architectural project it is natural that the architect look for experts to help him in these various areas. But he should not give up on controling fields that intrinsically belong to architecture and its presentation (meaning communication). And colour and light are certainly among the most important ones for this goal. For this reason Light and Colour should be considered a specific branch of specialisation that could help architects to convey their objectives concerning aesthetical, functional, ergonomic and comfort issues. Colour consultants should work together with light designers to promote the knowledge that architects need to communicate the complex and transdisciplinary objectives of architecture. To illustrate these premises we present some results of our practice both as Colour Consultant and as Light and Colour teacher at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Lisbon.

Color is an integral element of our world, not just in the natural environment but also in the man-made architectural environment. Color always played a role in the human evolutionary process. The environment and its colors are perceived, and the brain processes and judges what it perceives on an objective and subjective basis. Psychological influence, communication, information, and effects on the psyche are aspects of our perceptual judgment processes. Hence, the goals of color design in an architectural space are not relegated to decoration alone.

Color Research and Application, 2006

This article examines some of the outstanding contributions or points of interest in the research and application of color in architecture, from ancient times to the present. The discourses about color are classified by periods and according to the utterers: theoreticians or writers of architectural treatises, archeologists and historians of architecture, architects who have been relevant in professional practice, color theorists coming from the fields of architecture and design, and color researchers related to the International Color Association. As a conclusion, the main characteristics of these discourses about color are summarized, and a point is made about the use of instruments derived from color science in color design, implying that the evolution in the use of color in environmental design and the research in this field will increasingly rely on the interaction between scientists and designers. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 31, 350–363, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20224

2000

While the Sixties and “the Seventies witnessed an emergent group of architects, among them the Post-Modernists, who began re-experimenting with color by engaging it as an important facet of their design”, as Tom Porter mentioned in his book: Architectural Color (1984), a similar tendency started among Turkish architects in the Eighties. In my MS thesis I had studied “The Color Dimension in Urban Space” and concluded that generally architects’ use of color in urban space have followed five main approaches: For reinforcing or enriching architectural form, color is used without giving any reference to a specific concept; otherwise it is referred to history and traditions; to nature; to the built environment; or finally to materials. After investigation of Turkish architects’ approaches to color, after 1980 in determined arteries of Ankara, this paper concludes that actually similar approaches is valid in the architectural world, and aims to share and discuss this conclusion with experts in this field. Keywords: color, architectural form, history and traditions, nature, built environment, building material

Journal of Art & Architecture Research Studies - JAARS, 2020

Based on three main causes this paper intends to motivate interior architecture designers to utilize color as coding tool to be more feasible. First cause: the potential capability of color as powerful element of interior architecture with distinguish relation between human and objects. Second cause: the rapid developments of our contemporary life, which generate enormous items need to be classified. Third cause: the domain of using color as means of coding requires more awareness in spite the existence of many studies and application covering many aspects of color uses and explaining the role color plays in our lives. The paper will investigate types of architecture spaces that more compatible with color coding concepts, likely to enforce interior architectural design like healthcare and educational facilities, industrial projects. The paper will expose to recognize case to confirm the necessity of using color as coding tool. Important recommendations and consideration will be indi...

2013

Colour has accompanied man throughout time since the beginnings, the primitive man used colour to paint drawings in caves, so the relationship between man and colour was, and still is, one of the closest. In architecture, colour swung between the magic, ritualic role and aesthetics, between outside and inside, scoring or reinterpreting in every step new facets and meanings. This article is a brief overview of the main aspects of this evolution, from the prehistoric times to the present with an emphasis on the relationship between the colour and the architectural composition.

Color Research & Application

This article deals with the possibilities that color affords architectural composition, the strategies facilitated through color as a vocabulary of expression. It primarily focuses on the rules of grammar and syntax of color, and to a lesser degree on the semantic meanings, as this would entail multiple interpretations by the observer. Following an analysis of architectural color classification systems suggested by other authors, we reason that there are three main groups of plastic strategies. These are not mutually exclusive, but rather, complementary to each other: (I) color can influence the perception of the visual properties of architectural shapes; (II) color can describe the building and (III) color can be arranged for its intrinsic value. Each of these strategies deals with a different level of knowledge of the building, which requires both subconscious and conscious mechanisms of identification by the observer. These are the color strategies used by architects to express a particular compositional purpose. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 2012

International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology, 2015

Color is considered as an integral element of our environment, not only represented in the living organisms of the natural environment but also in the man-made various environments, Color always played an important role in the human evolutionary processes from the simple human shelters to the huge mega cities The environment and its colors are perceived, and the brain processes and judges what it perceives on an objective and subjective basis. Psychological influence, communication, information, and effects on the psyche are aspects of our perceptual judgment processes. Hence, the goals of color design in an architectural space are not relegated to decoration alone (Mahnke, 2015). This paper aims to study the color as a human nature that has been related to the built-in Environment, and how color as a human activity, is important to the level of being a need, not only to achieve some decorative or aesthetical values, but also to fulfill some needs of the human being that they cannot live without, starting from studying color in natural environment till color as an important component of Man-made environment represented in architectural and urban contexts, this paper also questions the importance of color in humans life, and how it is related and important to many vital activities of the human being, not only as a fashion or an architects Design for a specific building or an urban planner setup.