Whether the colour is left unaffected, or is
stained for enhancement, it’s really the top coat
or final finish that can make the difference.
The concerns here of course are appearance,
maintenance and durability. In a residential
setting, the size of the task is so small by
comparison that any finish is fine. However, in a
commercial setting, a wax finish just won’t cut it.
A polyurethane finish is notoriously hard-
wearing, has a long cure time, but is available
in a water based low VOC formula – that’s not
to discount the more traditional polyurethane
finish which is rated as relatively safe, despite
using petroleum-based solvents.
Durability and maintenance have been
key concerns that led buildings of high traffic
numbers to be painted in generic white, or
institutional grey and green. If you have just
three colours to repair and a lot of government
buildings that get scuffed, the economics of
scale overrule the desire for diversity, beauty
and visual relief.
Thank goodness science came through with
excuses for a crowd of chroma, a blur of blues, a
riot of reds, a purse of pinks. Science has proven
the value of colour to our emotional comfort
and productivity levels.
Think of colours as wavelengths – a visual
representation of an energy that your brain can
read. Once you do that, colour becomes like
a secret language, one that bypasses familiarsense interpretation, and finds its target deep
within the cerebral cortex where our lizard
brain is still playing hide and seek.
Orange – the colour of sunlight at dawn and
dusk – represents an ideal time to hunt for food,
change locations, and stay warm. All energy-
consuming occupations. But wait – is that why
we become more active with orange tones? Is
that what make it a colour that inspires us to
get up and go? Orange has the second highest
wavelength interval (red is at the top) and
is thought of as the wavelength of activity,
agitating the brain into action.
If this is to be taken on board, it becomes
clear why classrooms avoid orange like the
plague, and instead opt for blue. Open skies,
open water, and the second lowest wavelength
interval – blue is calming, non-distracting, and
creates the perfect effect for quiet learning, or
even healing, as restfulness is incumbent on
repairing the body.
However, the lizard brain lurking within
our human one can be easily manipulated, and
there is evidence to suggest that the immediate
effect of the wavelength can be overridden by
other stimuli.
So, despite all our references and
investigations and theories, in most cases the
effect of our chosen tones and palette will be
somewhat ameliorated by familiarity. The
insight to take away is perhaps that designersand clients should not be married to colour
schemes and theories for life; that revision and
updates are beneficial, if not therapeutic, on
many levels.
Perhaps we should rather be considering
the mixing of stimuli. The power of positive
and negative, or of too few or too many stimuli
in a room – that includes all sensory inputs,
not just colours – is one that can be more
deeply understood.
You cannot look at a room as just colours,
just sounds, or just textures – but rather as
a holistic experience.
This opens the door to consider the growing
acceptance of the Virtual Reality experience
in designing learning and healing contexts.
The ultimate in design – where nothing is real,
boundaries and building budgets do not exists,
and everything is possible. Where surgeons
can experience a surgery, in every sense of the
world, before they even put on their scrubs.
It is also where patients will put on their
goggles and leave the operating theatre, the
ward, the dentist’s chair – and instead go to
Disneyland, take a balloon ride over Provence
or slay White Walkers in Winterfell.
It will be a world where students can immerse
themselves in Da Vinci’s actual studio as they
learn about flying machines or climb to the
zenith of a Zaha Hadid building during a course
on structural engineering.above Wattyl’s I.D. range is an interior paint with a surface finish that increases the effectiveness of being cleaned.
Photography Nicole England (above).SUPPLIeRS Dulux architectureanddesign.com.au/suppliers/dulux Wattyl architectureanddesign.com.au/suppliers/wattyl Resene architectureanddesign.com.au/suppliers/
resene-paints-australia-ltd Rockcote architectureanddesign.com.au/suppliers/rockcote-enterprisesArchItEcturE & DEsIgN /PRactIcaL/ jul-sEP 201962ADQ3_058_063_Paints_V2.indd 62 29/7/19 3:08 pm