Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Light and Color in Architecture

I began my final year of school yesterday, sooo excited!

We are beginning the semester with the study of light and color and their affects on architecture. Light plays a huge role in good design.  Good design in my opinion is a space that not only serves its function and does it well but also offers an experience for the users that enriches their lives. Lighting that is designed to compliment a space can have a large impact on the way that place affects the people who experience it.  We experience light in so many ways as it interacts with the climate, water, sky, materials and the nature around us, each interaction giving us new views and experiences of the world around us. Without light we wouldn’t have the broad range of color and contrast that gives us all the different visual experiences we are able to create when manipulating the two. Different values of the two allow us to create drama, sadness, excitement, happiness and other moods and feelings. Color and lighting techniques can offer the viewer an experience unlike any other or recreate similar feelings from familiar places and past experiences. Everything we come in contact with visually we associate by the form and shape created through light and color. So you see light and color are huge components to design and can add many layers that can easily be manipulated to create new and old experiences.

For our first project we are working on design proposals for the Downtown Greenway Project. The Downtown Greenway is a four mile biking and walking trail around downtown Greensboro. The project is focusing connecting the Greensboro community through open green spaces and hoping to encourage smarter transportation options. The part we will be working on is an abandoned railroad underpass, which is part of the Greenway. Through the use of color and light we will be creating design proposals to attract and engage passersby. 

Check out some great lighting designs like this one from Magazine Enlighter, Lighting design and light art magazine

Love the feeling of motion I get from this piece!



1 comment:

Veronica Harvey said...

Absolutely Beautiful blog. From one fellow Pisces to the next...the creative bug is all over us right now.