Hey, Eric here with 30 by 40 Design Workshop talking about how architects think about and
use color in our work, and it's more than just about aesthetics.
Be sure to stick around at the end for all the tools resources and apps I'm using in
my practice.
Before we get too far into it I'm sort of presuming you have a basic working knowledge
of the primary, secondary, and tertiary colors, and that you know the difference between warm
and cool tones.
If not, there's a link in the cards that will bring you up to speed.
Now, building on that we have hue saturation and value.
Think of hue as the color, saturation how intense the color is, and value as how light
or dark it is.
To build out a full complement of colors for us to use from the three primary colors we
add: tints, which are created by adding white to a given hue, shades which are made by adding
black, and tones by adding gray, which is essentially differing amounts of black and
white.
When you're thinking about color choices, understand that the value - remember how light
or dark it is - influences the amount of light it will reflect back into a space.
A white wall will reflect a little over 80% of the light that hits it, while a dark wall
might reflect less than 10% of the light hitting it.
Now, there's many different combinations of colors based on their location and relationship
on the color wheel and it's probably good to familiarize yourself with them, in practice
though, I don't start by choosing a color scheme.
I always somehow land on either a monochromatic, neutral, achromatic, or analogous color scheme,
but it's not an intentional practice, it's more organic.
But, these can be excellent starting points for any novice working with color.
Using tints, tones, and shades of the same hue, it's pretty hard to go wrong there.
Study the architecture you think is most successful and I'll guarantee there's a thoughtful and
obvious approach to material and color being employed.
To construct computer models of clay, or study models of brown corrugated and white museum
board - as we're taught to do in school - simply denies this really important layer of color
meaning.
Your first step though isn't digging into your Sherwin-Williams binder and grabbing
an off-white, three grays, and a red to test out.
Step one in color design is to recall the building concept.
What's the goal?
What are you trying to do?
The concept unifies everything, you're kind of lost without it.
So, I start by asking: “What's the story I'm trying to tell?”
Now, the story can be about the place, or the client, or the occupants, or about the
geometry, about natural light, or separation, or circulation, about openness, or seclusion,
or a journey from light to dark, anything you choose.
For me, I like to have an image to lean on - abstract or not - to use as a reminder of
this goal.
Often it's from the site or a nearby location and I'll use it to draw color ideas from.
But, more on this later.
Indigenous materials have always been the first materials used to create our architecture.
It's no surprise we grabbed the ones we had nearby first.
Look at the city of Siena in Italy.
The namesake for the color Siena was derived from the hue of the terrain there; it was
the same clay they used to make their tile roofs and their bricks.
There's a reason behind the color of the architecture there and it's linked to the materials they
chose to build with.
As an architect, this is the kind of authenticity I'm always seeking.
By contrast, invented or applied colors, like paint, were - at least historically - a luxury.
Only those with means could afford paint.
The decision to paint a house, while it was intentional, was reserved for the wealthy
and was actually used to distinguish their architecture from those of lesser means.
Now, that doesn't mean I don't use paint, I certainly do, and it doesn't have the same
implications today that it once did, but it's not where I begin thinking about color.
Where I begin is by asking how the materials I'm using can help to convey the story I'm
telling more convincingly.
Whenever possible I like to begin building a color palette using natural materials as
the foundation.
And, the benefit of this kind of color scheme is that rather than being monochromatic, they
quite often exhibit a complex group of tones and shades and these provide a depth to our
spaces that’s difficult to achieve with paint.
One of the hacks I use to build color palettes for a given project is to pull them from photographs
of the surrounding site.
Key images aren't only useful for presenting your ideas to clients and setting the stage,
they can help portray emotion.
Most clients have difficulty imagining small sample colors or a material swatch writ large
in a room for example.
Now, of course rendering and VR technologies are quickly changing that but short of those
we can use imagery to imply relative balance of color in a space or convince someone your
idea has merit.
I can promise you that clients rely on images, in part, for assurance that they're not the
first ones to sign up for a seemingly quirky architectural color agenda.
Key images can help you minimize or emphasize a building's impact by matching or contrasting
the tones of the surrounding context.
Context color will change your perception too.
Placing a light color near a dark one forces us to perceive each as being more of what
they already are: darker or lighter.
This is known as simultaneous contrast.
Color is a tool we can use, just like form, and we can emphasize certain intents, to expand
the sense of space using lighter colors, or to diminish it using darker ones.
And, importantly, we can use it to distinguish between building systems: structure, doors
and windows, circulation, service versus served, horizontal surfaces, or ones that we touch
often.
Dividing the architecture into systems is an easy way to sort out all the decisions
you'll need to make.
I like to start with the floors and the walls because they have a lot of visual weight in
our spaces and our natural light will be reflected off these surfaces, but you can start almost
anywhere.
Architects have very different concerns when it comes to color than artists or graphic
designers do.
Because quite often our colors come from the materials we choose to build with their texture
and their reflectance causes us to perceive their color as different depending on the
light that's illuminating them.
Light is married to our perception of color.
To understand this without getting too far into the weeds about visible wavelengths and
electromagnetic radiation, you need to know that all light has a color temperature and
it's expressed in degrees Kelvin.
If you've been shopping for light bulbs you might have noticed that they're classed as
warm white, cool white, or daylight balanced.
They also all have a degree Kelvin number on the packaging too.
The color temperature of visible light ranges from what we perceive as very warm - say candlelight
- which is around 1500 Kelvin or a 40-watt incandescent bulb at 2700 Kelvin, all the
way up to a cloudless sky at 15,000 Kelvin.
Somewhat counter-intuitively, the higher the number in Kelvin the cooler the light as we
perceive it.
So, sunrise and sunset are actually quite warm at 3200 Kelvin, as we get to noon, the
whiter light of the Sun is around 5500 K, that's usually the temperature of a daylight
balanced bulb, and then there's the even more diffuse and cooler feeling of an overcast
sky at 6500 Kelvin.
So, what does all this mean to you the designer?
Well, first the colors you select will be changed by the kind of light illuminating
it - whether that's natural or artificial - and equally by the exposure of the interior
rooms, which direction they receive their natural light from.
In the northern hemisphere, north-facing rooms receive a whiter, more even light, as they're
illuminated by light reflected from the sky dome which has a higher temperature in Kelvin.
And, that's whiter light than say a west-facing room where the setting sun is warmer.
Rooms that receive a lot of daylight will change throughout the day and it all changes
again in the evening when we use only artificial light.
If you were to paint two rooms with different exposures the same color white they would
each look different.
We talked about hue and lightness earlier and that comes into play here.
A surface’s lightness determines how much of the light hitting it is reflected back
into the space.
If you're designing for a high latitude, for example, you'll probably want to use lighter
colors to compensate for the lower sun angles and diminished intensity.
Because lighter colors reflect more light they'll also impart more of their hue on the
reflected light in our space.
As a general rule, painting a room one color will increase how saturated you perceive that
color to be because the reflected light is colored by the surface amplifying it.
Reflection can be used in other ways too.
A recent renovation project of mine was for a classic structure here in Maine designed
by George Howe.
The living space is cantilevered out over the ocean and he did this really clever thing,
he painted all the ceilings inside this very light shade of blue in a really glossy finish
and the effect was to amplify the reflected light off the water creating a blue colored
light reaching the entire interior of the house.
Now, absorption of darker materials can equally be used to balance and control contrast.
Here in the studio, the darker floor and tall wainscoting helps tame the midday sun entering
the skylights and the six months of the year where snow is covering the ground outside.
Had the floor or walls been lighter in tone the reflections would have made working in
here more difficult.
Light and color impacts how we feel in a space, how large or small it feels, how we find our
way, and can even modify our behavior affecting mental acuity, focus, and alertness.
Now, there are only a few very universal emotional color associations.
For example, red for stop or green for go.
And, there are a great many more cultural ones: blue for boys, pink for girls.
And, nearly infinite personal ones.
My childhood bedroom was completely blue: blue furniture, blue carpeting, blue walls,
ceiling, bedding, and drapery, and I don't know if that's to blame, but as an adult I
really can't stand the color blue.
You're probably aware of, or have read about associations like: red is passionate or energetic,
yellow is cheerful, or green and blue are tranquil.
But, these are subject to an enormous variation depending on your client or end-user’s personal
or cultural associations.
White has very different meanings in Western culture than it does in Eastern cultures for
example.
Although much of this research is subject to personal interpretation there is a body
of color research out there that proves some of the more common ideas you're probably familiar
with, things like lighter colors expand space and darker ones contract it.
NASA, the US Space Agency, has done extensive research with respect to colors’ impact
on space environments so, if you want to take a really deep dive on this check out the video
linked in the cards, it's actually really interesting.
Boring, right?
That's the point.
Neutrals are naturally harmonious and don't demand attention like brighter hues might.
We tend to tire of bold, highly saturated hues over time while neutrals, because they're
not dominant, tend to have longer staying power.
Neutral color schemes allow interior objects to assume a more dominant role.
Think about a museum's interior palette, most often they're rendered in a neutral scheme,
especially in the galleries, to let the artwork take prominence.
A neutral color palette allows me to highlight forms and structure, shadows are read easily
on lighter tones, while darker tones will tend to recede.
So, they allow me to highlight objects and personal effects in residential architecture
over, a brightly colored wall, let's say.
They interact with daylight and candlelight in very predictable ways, and they're always
subtly changing, with the objects inside, with the changing light of the seasons; they
rarely look the same.
So, for me, neutral palettes allow the architecture to function as a container for the context,
its occupants, objects, and just life.
Okay, now for some of the key tools I use when I'm building color palettes.
For my key images I'm often just using the camera on my phone and editing the images
in Lightroom or Snapseed.
The apps I like for choosing color palettes are: the Pinterest app, where I can curate
different boards of key images, sample materials, color schemes, fabrics, paint color chips,
and I can share these with my clients or a remote project team.
I also like the Pantone app and Adobe Capture CC, for building color palettes from photos
especially ones I want to bring into Photoshop.
The augmented reality in the Sunseeker app will help you determine how natural light
will impact your color selections.
Also, I really like this little bi-colored LED light panel for testing color perception
at 5500 K and 3200 K lighting scenarios.
It's portable, and it's actually great for model photography too.
The Sherwin-Williams app, Color Snap or the comparable Ben Moore Color Capture allows
you to build a palette of their colors right from a photo or even a Pinterest pin.
Also included are paint calculators, the ability to save a palette, and scan color numbers
and see them in rooms.
Having paint chips and physical samples on hand are always helpful.
In addition to my rolling cart sample library, I'm a fan of Sherwin-Williams Architect’s
Sample Kit which has more color swatches with tricky names than you ever knew existed.
You might also grab a fan deck from Behr and Benjamin Moore too if you prefer those brands.
And then there's the beautifully neutral color schemes from Farrow & Ball.
Now, if they won't send you this stuff for free - and they should - head to a hardware
store and help yourself.
The coated samples are really great for model making by the way.
Remodelista has a number of architecture paint palette posts for you to browse online, or
you might consider their book.
Ilse Crawford is a fantastically gifted, interior designer, she has a book called A Frame for
Life, and if you haven't read my perennial favorite, Thinking Architecture by Peter Zumthor,
it's basically required reading.
Then there's the classic, In Praise of Shadows; also check out graphic design and typography
books they have just beautiful color schemes.
There's Pantone sourcebooks, and I also like to look outside of our profession - there's
Alinea by Grant Achatz, I use maps for inspiration, magazines like Dwell and Wallpaper and even
catalogs from CB2 or online ones from Huckberry.
Now, these are style guides, I know, but they often have all these coordinating accessories
of life that can inspire your color palette.
I'll include a few videos in a playlist and link those up in the description too.
Now, if I've helped you at all with this video do me a favor and smash that like button below.
Also, I'm planning to do a quick-fire Q&A soon so, if you post your questions in the
comments or up-vote your favorites, I'll try to answer them in a future video.
All of you who stick around to the end here, you get yours answered first.
Thanks as always for coming back here each week to watch the video, appreciate you guys!
I'll see you again next week, cheers!