2 effects of colours

The Effects of Colours in Public Spaces.

Written by Indra Kooge – 131788

There is one thing most of us take for granted and hardly realize that it effects how we feel, interact and perform in life. So, what effects us so much?

It’s colour and it enhances our lives and mood. But why are we so afraid to use it in public spaces? Public spaces mostly lack both bright and lively colours, but we paint our houses because we then perceive a better environment. So, how can we use the knowledge of colour and implement that into urban design?

The foundation of modern colour study is erected by Goethe, the famous writer of Faust. He was intrigued by the human mind and how it’s effected and he researched this in every single way. In 1810 he wrote Zur Farbenlehre (Theory of Colours) where he diagrammed and set colours with their meaning.(1) Until the 1950’s he only people who used colours were artists. After the 1950’s the marketing sector discovered the power of colour to change people’s moods to sell more product. Experiments also prove that colour can even effect our health and improve the condition of Alzheimer patients.(2) Most of our public spaces are grey, brown, white and black, but how do these and other colours effect our mood? Do colours then makes us feel and think about something with us being aware of it? Research in colour suggests this. Just imagine the next colours unto the facade of your house, how would those colours make you feel?

White, total reflection of all colours, feels pure and clean but can also feel very sterile. White is mostly seen in areas like hospitals, because these need to be sterile. Grey, the colour of the concrete jungle, works very neutral for humans and can drain energy and let people feel down. Black, total lack of colour, can feel very glamorous but is mostly seen as cold and heavy. Brown, the colour of earth, reflects nature and lack of sophistication, a simpler life.

Yellow, the colour of sunflowers, makes us feel optimistic, confident and feels friendly but can make us think irrational. Red, the colour of love, physical energy, strenght and agression, a very active colour. Orange, the colour of the sun, makes us feel passionate and frustrated, and makes us think of food, commenly used in fruitbars to stimulate consumption. Green, like fields, makes us feel at peace and balanced, general positive and activates us. Blue, the colour of water, makes us feels trustworthy, calm and cold. But it makes us want to communicate and reflect on oneself or others.(3)(4)

Knowing now what colours do to us, what does it mean for urban design? We are going to use a small park as example, located in a city with main goals to let people relax, interact and do physical activities.

Now, we are going to put our colour knowledge to practice. Around the edges of the park, we want a path for people to jog. The theory of colour suggest we should make this red, because red will stimulate physical activity. The suggestion of the colour will also let people recognize it as such, think about the dutch bike lines. Inside the park itself are several small areas for people to get together, the tiles leading to the area are in brown, to ease the mind.

Arriving at the area you will find seats painted in a soft blue tone, what makes us reflect, with a view over beautiful botanical gardens with yellow and blue flowers, this also allows us to reflect, makes us feel at peace and optimistic. Or we can colour it with tradition colours, black, green and brown, that makes us feel simple, bored and hollow? So which one do you think works best?(4) (5)

Colour can be a very powerful tool for urban design. Urban designers are always looking for ways how to direct people, we mostly do this by shapes and form. Although we use colour, most of the time we chose colour by our gut feeling. However , if urban designers start learning about colour we can suggest them in the right way. In this way , we can influences the people’s moods on how to use spaces, without them even knowing it. Colour is not only something that colours our lives but it has a fast grasp on our mind and emotion. Even though we are not very aware of this. Most of us rarely control or have awareness of colour and are to afraid to use it public space. The impact of the use of colour can be enormous. This tool is already being successfully used in marketing, so why not in urban design? If we start understanding colour and master it, we can master our designs and make the use of our public spaces even better.

1-Goethe, J. (1840), Theory of Colours, London 2-Bellizzi, J. (2006), Environmental color, consumer feelings, and purchase likelihood, Psychology & Marketing, 9:347-363.

3-Eiseman, L. (1998), Colors for your every mood, Capital Books.

4-Yiakoupi, K. (2009), Colours in public interior spaces, Wolverhampton.

5-Souther-Brown, G (2014), Landscape and Urban Design for health and well-being, Routledge.