How do you use color to “move” your occupant? Do you go beyond merely using it as a wayfinding technique? Or do you “paint” your three-dimensional space to lead your occupant on a journey that enhances the spirit of place?
As you will find within the following slideshow, color can be used within architecture in soul-stirring and innovative ways. Color not only engages a building occupant by making real the beauty of function, but also invites them “in” to truly “touch” a space — perhaps at first with their eyes, but then with all of their senses as color becomes much more when it meets the eye.
So, how do you use color to “move” your building occupants?
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- By color coding ducts to reveal a building’s climate, electrical, plumbing and circulation arteries.
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- By filtering and layering light to bring spirit to a place.
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- By bringing unity and community to individual living spaces.
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- By bringing “life” to meaningful memories.
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- By allowing their eyes to “touch” a surface in ways their other senses cannot.
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- By revealing the beauty of fluidity and rhythm.
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- By mathematically coding the meeting of music, sculpture and a culture’s differing demographics.
Light has many faces, and many forms. As an architect, you can “paint” with light, “sculpt” with light and guide your occupant to “touch” it.
The following slideshow takes a look at how light can “set off” built form, and how built form can “set off” light. When the two fuse poetically, they can showcase your materials, an experiential path or even “warm” an otherwise “cold” space.
So, the real question becomes…
WHY Do You Inject Light into Your Building Designs?
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- To bring “lift” to your building form.
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- To capture a breathtaking vista.
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- To mark the time of day.
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- To cast texture and rhythm.
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- To shelter through purity of form.
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- To touch the heavens.
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- To build an “invisible” connection.
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- To filter a kaleidoscope of colors.
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- To bring celebration to the world.
Architects are constantly defying gravity. We built into and with the sky, and the way in which we engage it says a lot about our work. Building upward involves more than just getting your occupants to look up.
The following is a 10 image slideshow presented with hopes to inspire you to think about the sky creatively. These captured moments, ranging in complexity, illustrate just how delicate the balance is between our built forms and the sky which surrounds us.
Here are ten ways to built into and with the sky, to defy gravity and to help you design architecture that is more balanced, harmonious and awe-inspiring.
How To Build Into the Sky…
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- Frame it, to capture your own horizons.
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- Travel into it, provide activity from high above.
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- Listen to it, through a funnel of flutes.
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- Capture the sky and bring it to ground-level.
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- Move downward, changing your “ground”. Peek up at it.
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- Transition into the sky while writing in it.
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- Lead the eye upward along a path.
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- Move through it, like the wings of a bird.
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- Build into it. Filter in all of its light.
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- Remove boundaries. Blur the sky with your built form.
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It is fascinating to think about the “between-state” of nature and built form. Each can support, erode, filter or even sculpt the other. Both architecture and nature seem to continuously creep into each other’s territories, as if to propel the notion that they are really inseparable — as you will see in the following slideshow.
It is my hope that these simple “captured moments” will spark an idea for you regarding architecture’s interplay with nature. As architects, we always should be aware of our green environment…for so many reasons. It is important that we build with our environment and not against it. Here are nine simple reasons why:
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- Architectural Weathering — displaying nature and built form’s delicate balance.
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- Improving Building Systems — a vertical display of nature texturizing our environments.
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- We Reflect Nature — The sky looks as if it is coming from the building’s interior.
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- Nature’s Growth— Nature most always finds a way to make an appearance.
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- Nature’s Perspective — This water droplet reflects buildings on its surface.
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- Feeding Our Experiences — Light “striking” an interior space.
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- Local Natural Systems — A nest “built” within a building’s fixture.
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- Capturing Nature’s Beauty — An old brick wall reveals nature, as if to filter it through.
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- Socio-political Factors — an abandoned city taken over by lush nature.
Please Tell Me What You Think
I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.
