Synopsis Colour / space: its quality management in architecture

the colour/space unity for visual communication

Author : Dilip Muralidharan (B.arch IX sem, 2007EAL23)

Through this research, I want to examine the phenomenon of colour as a means of expression of meaning in spatial contexts. In external city environments there is a poor understanding and often no conscious use of colours. The experts that works with colours, in terms of physical built environment, either as project makers or as managers, are poorly prepared to deal with it. As an answer they minimize the problem of colour in architecture, especially in exteriors, simply by omission; or, they introduce colour mostly without criteria- in some projects colour plays only a cosmetic role supposedly aesthetical. Most project makers do not consider colour as an integral part of the global design process. People in general are very conscious of colour and texture in the built environment and they really like variations. Also colour has psychotherapeutic effects that can be utilized to meet the physiological needs of people living in crowded environments. Colour is one of the basic components of the environment, which influences life quality and it can be approached from different perpectives and different disciplines. The integration of paintings and colour into architectural setting made it possible for multiple layers of experience to be examined. The basic meaning was extracted from the relationship between colour and the perception of two dimensions of space pictorial space depicted in the paintings and the architectural space. This research describes the conceptual model based on a combination of this pragmatic evidence and theoretical framework developed from the existing indisciplinary body of knowledge of colour. This research also discusses how relationships between aesthetic and psychological categories were established. It contributes to the field by demonstrating

how the subjectivity of the perpetual experience can be translated into the expression of meaning along perceptive and affective dimensions within the context of a real life application of colour in space. This dissertation addresses the issue of colour in the architecture of the built environment, analyzing the behavior of the unity which results from the straight relationship between colour and space(as quantity of colour); the colour/space unity. This exploration shows not only the existence of this unity, but also that it is a unity of visual communication. Inorder to allocate the findings and interpretations through a review of the relevant theory, I would like to use a survey methodology along with case studies and literature studies of important architectural landmarks gifted by various masters like Luis Barragan, Le Corbusier, Laurie Baker, Frank Lloyd Wright: the ancient monumental temples of madhurai, wall paintings of bihar; the madhubani. The research presents as results, not only the existence and importance of the colour/space unity, as a visual communication one, such as the levels of articulation of the messages in the built environment or the contrast in the relationship between qualification and quantification in colour/space language; but it demonstrates the major importance of the colour/space unity in the architectural project and in the colour planning management within built environment in response to its function.

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