What Colour
is the Red House?
By Karin Fridell
Anter
Royal
Institute of Technology
Stockholm
This thesis starts from an experience shared by many architects and others who have at some time chosen a façade colour: ' The house is not the colour I thought it would be!'
Perceived
colour of painted façades
Karin asked 400 people to determine the colours on over 100 painted houses,
first by observation and then by comparison with actual colour samples.
These were the
results of the study:
•The façade always has a clearer and lighter colour than you see on the colour sample. You should therefore choose a colour sample which looks darker than the colour which you want to see on your house.
• The colour on the façade often appears more chromatic than the colour which was seen on the colour sample. You should therefore choose a colour sample which looks 'dirtier' than the colour which you want to see on your house.
• The colour on the façade often has another hue than seen on the colour sample. In most cases, this shift takes place from yellow towards blue. Green façades are often perceived to be bluish, even if the colour sample is a yellowish green. Pink colours often become bluish even if the colour sample was a yellow-pink, and neutral grey colours tend to give façades with a slight tinge of blue.
Contact:
Karin Fridell
Anter, Architect SAR/MSA, PhD
Explicator AB, Noreens väg 71, SE- 752 63 Uppsala, SWEDEN
Click here for further details
Tara Hanrahan: Sky colour chart and seasonal swatch books
Aim: To challenge our perception of the colour of sky. It is not, (despite dictionary description) by definition, blue.
The chart and books are the conclusion of a year long study into the colour of the sky. A total of 384 colours were chronologically obtained from photographs taken of the sky at a single location. A total of four days was recorded (each within a different season) with photographs taken at intervals of 15 minutes. The book colours were selected using an NCS Colour Meter to measure the colour of the photographs and give them an NCS notation. An NCS colour sheet was then used for each of these notations to form the pages of the swatch books.
Contact:
Tara
Hanrahan
MA RCA
Tel: 07939 226110
The Natural Colour System Triangle and Colour Circle can easily be used to provide graphic illustrations of the results of research, as in the examples below from the NCS publications Nature's Colour Palette and Colour Scales of Traditional Pigments.
For
information on other publications to do with the Natural Colour System:
Go
to Other NCS Publications
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