Colour for Architecture Today

What role does colour play in our built environment? How are our attitudes to colour changing? What potential do new technologies bring for the use of colour and light in architecture?
Combining real examples from practice with colour theory, this book will help you to fully understand the role and impact of colour in our urban spaces. Contributions from leading architects Will Alsop, Legorreta and Legorreta, John Outram, Sauerbruch Hutton and Neuterlings Riedijk accompany those from artists Alain Bony and Yann Kersalé, and from colour researchers such as Kristina Enberg and Anders Hård, who developed the Natural Colour System. Topics include:

how and why we see colour
methodologies in the documentation of traditional colours
the development of new urban palettes
recent colour psychology research
the effect of light levels on human behaviour
dramatic colour effects achievable with light
guidelines for future deployment of colour in the built environment.
This is a sequel to the immensely influential Colour for Architecture, published in 1976. Much has changed in 30 years; new cutting edge technologies and materials have emerged allowing architects to experiment with colour and light in an energy efficient and sustainable way, paving the way for a more colourful and exciting built environment.

Tom Porter is anauthor, lecturer and colour consultant. He is Visiting Professor at Montana State University and Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University
Byron Mikellides is Professor at the School of Architecture at Oxford Brookes University

Introduction Part 1: Why and How We See Colour 1. The Colour Currency of Nature 2. Seeing Colours 3. The Dynamics of Colour Part 2: Colour Mapping: Colour at the City Scale 4. Light, Locale and the Color of Cities 5. Italian City Colour Plans (1978–2007) 6. Unity in Diversity at Kirchsteigfeld, Potsdam 7. The Geography of Colour 8. Digital Colour Mapping Part 3: The NCS (Natural Color System) and Research Applications 9. NCS – the Natural Color System for the Denotation of Colour 10. Perceived and Inherent Colour: Comparing the Colour of External Façades with Colour Samples 11. Seven Kinds of Colour 12. Daylight Influence on Indoor Colour Design 13. The Longyearbyen Project: Approach and Method Part 4: Architects and Colour at the Building Scale 14. Color Structure: A Perceptual Techtonic 15. The Globalization of Colour 16. Evoking a Response 17. On Colour and Space 18. Iconic Engineering: Reflections on the Subject of Colour in Architecture, Ornament and City Planning 19. Code, Space and Light 20. The Illusive Façade 21. Colour 22. The Colour of Money (It Doesn’t Matter) Part 5: Colour Psychology and Colour Aesthetics 23. Colour Preference: The Longitudinal Perspective 24. Preferences for Colours on Buildings 25. Colour, Arousal, Hue-Heat and Time Estimation 26. Colour Synaesthesia: Seeing Sound and Hearing Colour 27. Light, Mood and Seasonal Disorders Part 6: Into the Light 28. Being in Colour 29. Architectural Light and Colour as a Source of Inspiration: An Approach to the Use of Colour 30. New 42nd Street, New York 31. The Fisherman of Light