Welcome!
I welcome you to Color in the Air - a place where ideas make a difference, where we will discuss everyday environment and how to make it better. An average human being gets about 75% of information through the eyesight, and most of the rest of it through other sensory experiences. Senses is our way to communicate with this world, and let's accept it - we don't have another planet to spare yet. It is time to discover how light and texture can change our surroundings and the way we interpret them.
A couple of years ago I completed a thesis as a part of my program to get a master's degree in Architecture. My first choice was to create a project that could end homelessness. Very soon it became clear that the issue of people losing roof over their head couldn't be solved by an architect alone. Someone, of course, had to make the first step in order to accomplish this goal. This is how I decided to change my thesis and rather treat it as a first step to something greater - to making people happy.
Now, how do you make anybody happy? I am pretty sure there are about a thousand answers to this question. But what can I do as an architect, as an artist? I can make everyday life better by applying my skill. This is how "Living in Color" was born - my master's thesis about the role of color in architecture and its ability to influence people's lives.
"Color plays a vital role in the world we live in. It can influence the thinking process of an individual, change people’s actions, and cause emotion-influenced reactions. It can irritate or calm your eyes, raise your blood pressure or suppress your appetite. By using the right colors even buildings’ energy consumption can be altered.
Modern use of color in architecture is mostly determined by the traditional stereotypes that have been left impersonalized for decades. By relying on common patterns, many available functions of color have been underutilized, and it led to underutilized archetypes and abandoning the emotional aspect of the space.
In the recent years the architecture has shifted in the direction of becoming international, which lead to disregarding the national and cultural specifics of each region and producing culturally unsustainable buildings. To raise the level of integrity and cultural sustainability it is essential to bring the color back into architecture and turn it from a psychological cliché into the language of architecture." - Ksenia Nation. Living in Color. Introduction. 2015
In my thesis I defined 11 uses of color in modern architecture, most of which did not relate to the region's culture, and therefore could not aid in creating sustainable design (as culture is necessary for sustainability).
By looking further and further into the subject I realized that the existing color theory was severely outdated. Most of it was based on stereotypes, created in a very specific environment, and then copy-pasted all over the world and accepted as universal.
Have you ever heard at lest one of these things: blue color calms people down, yellow color makes people hungry, red color makes people stressed... But who are these "people"? When choosing what to wear in the morning, do you say to yourself :"I will wear green today because color theory says that green color makes the time feel like it goes slower..." - probably not! When choosing color for themselves people usually know what they want and the reason they want it. There is really nothing wrong with surrounding yourself with something you like in a certain hue. It only gets complicated when we start talking about public spaces - places where people of all kinds of nationalities and cultures, opinions and stories, backgrounds and ideas come together and they all need to feel comfortable and know that they belong.
"There are existing pieces of papyrus dating back to 1550 BC that describe the color "cures". The idea of searching for the cure with the help of light and color is still practices among the non-traditional medicine" - Frank H. Mahnke. Color, Environment, and Human Response : an Interdisciplinary Understanding of Color and Its Use as a Beneficial Element in the Design of the Architectural Environment. 1996
The purpose of this blog is to create a better color theory, not based on stereotypes, but a living and changing one, the one that can adjust to anybody's needs without leaving a single person out. Color has been researched for many centuries now, and its part in human life has been changing throughout history. By understanding how sensory experiences influence everyday interactions, it is possible to create better environment for work,rest, special occasions - for life itself.
