September 25th Class Refection, Topics: Colour and Light, Thermal Energy

Our third class began with an introduction to colour and light with guest speaker Vaike Ruus. She spoke of the origins and cultural significance as well as the composition of different colours. She touched briefly on colour fundamentals, the colour spectrum, relationships between colours as presented in the different colour wheels and the two scales: value and intensity.

Vaike then brought our attention to the elements of colour in architecture, describing it as a sort of language, a story that, oddly enough has less to do with the aesthetics of architecture than one might think. Colour can express an atmosphere, a specific geographical location, a rich cultural history, as well as pure human emotion.
Since light varies in different parts of the world, in turn, so does the colour that one would consider unique to these places. How a sky can morph from place to place is something I find so intriguing. That in combination with the distinct soils and vegetation of an area can create the most beautiful palettes. The colour then found in the architecture functions in unison with the colour of the region as they play off and reflect into one another. This is why we find distinctions in light and the associated colours in Northern, Mexican and Mediterranean regions, for example. Vibrant splashes of pinks and oranges and cobalt blues are visually pleasing colours set against the backdrop of a dry, Mexican landscape. In Northern light, colours like deep matte blues, soft yellows and pinks compliment their cool skies. The unity of the natural world and the built environment in this way only reassures me that although it may not in a technical sense be “green” architecture, it is an expression of the organic world through architecture. Yet, despite this, I am going to be stubborn and say that I strongly believe the natural landscape will always be much greater than anything else we decide to force upon it.

Jae-Sung continued the second half of the class with a lecture pertaining to thermal energy. He opened our minds to the usefulness of energy and how it is essential in creating sustainable architecture. He encouraged us to think of the human comfort level and to explore how far that notion could be stressed. It was amazing to see the amount of information needed to create a flawlessly comfortable environment.
I think the most valuable lesson taken from this class was that, as designers, we must always be mindful of our parameters, be critical of design and pro-active towards the issues that are most important to us. Functionality, sustainability and beauty can co-exist in the design world. It is this hybridization that will lead us to be most successful in the future.