Talking about Colour & home

Important points to develop a ‘colour’ scheme for your home:

Architect Hiranthi PATHIRANA (BAP)

Colour scheme is basically understood as the employment of one or more hues along with their tints, shades or complementary hues to obtain a desired result, in the space.

Therefore the scheme is the pre thought out process, deliberately to create, the right atmosphere.

Therefore these colour schemes can be based on one colour, termed as Monochromic, two colors named as, Dichromatic, or more than two colours identified as polychromatic. Colour scheme is pre planned to careful thought, to make a pleasing atmosphere in a building.

The use of right colour, can create the right mood, activity, interest and create effective three dimensional visual compositions. Certain important factors governing the selection of an appropriate colour scheme such as the choice of the person the space is designed for, the time span used, function and size etc.

For example, warm and exciting colours, can be used in the spaces where shorter time span, is spent, such as entrance halls, conference rooms, shops, bathrooms, etc and the bed rooms, kitchen, and relative spaces, where used for, long time spans, can be incorporated, with sober and cool colours.

COLOUR PLAN - It is most important that the colour plan, for your home should be based on, one focal point, from which the other plans would be laid out. The largest visible areas should be decided first, and the sharper and brighter, colours, to be used, for accentuation, purposes. The effects of urniture, objects and other accessories, also impart, unity to the scheme.

Incorporation of colour, patterns too can be utilized, to create the right atmosphere. Also the total language, that is denoted with the space, in a home, should flow from one to another creating rhythmic, cohesion, of unity in the scheme. In smaller rooms, it is the practice, to use high key colour schemes, and the bigger rooms to be applied with low key colour schemes so that their, enlarged appearances, would not over whelm, the person in it.

In the exterior of a building, considering the movement of the sun, colours should be chosen carefully.

Due to its movements East is warm in the mornings, West in the evenings, North is cool at all times, and the South is generally temperate. This again becomes a governing factor, in choosing colour scheme for the home.

Colour schemes are generally, grouped in to several types, basically two groups can be identified as the non mechanical and nonmechanical schemes.

Non mechanical schemes are, generally, obtained from themes, objects, paintings, and natures colour patterns. Themes are generally applied with the strong choice of the occupant, of the space.

For restaurants, showrooms, themes are applied at large. Natural nature colour schemes carry timeless concepts, with subtle, hues and shades to suit any activity that can be applied to the entire home.

A need for a spirited space in today’s world:

Awareness in public space design

Space that we know in the practical world has no shape, that it may relate to a feeling of the atmosphere. It is believed that space itself is amorphous in our active lives and purely abstract in scientific thought. It is also identified as an experience, gradually discovered by the collaboration of the senses.

Maybe today, spatial experience may have refined too much with precision, and artifice of the sciences, particularly in other parts of the world, driven by business mainly, that it can no longer be called an entity.

Spaces may serve for the individual physical need, comforts of all sorts, for individuals and groups, but does it serve the needs of the soul? A question arises.

The science of form making is identified as the building morphology that involves with the systematic study of how the social consciousness appear in the built forms. It is understood that the ‘publicness’ is the binding factor that hold and unifies the built fabric, used by people.

Public space is considered as the space for impersonal encounters and the coexistence of many other activities that happen in them, such as commerce, leisure, sports, politics and religious activities.

It is considered that the public spaces in the city should serve all levels of the society to fulfill the deep rooted need for these kinds of spaces.

Particularly the intense interventions occur in the built substances in the city that may fail to relate to people. It has been noted that the spaces designed with response to the public is a must that leads to the healthy environment.

It is observed that most of the spaces designed in the city, neglect the social concerns in the building design so that it becomes a non- communicative element in the built fabric that is subjected to public ignorance in physical, spatial and visual attributes.

Thus it extends from streets, shop fronts, parks, squares, commuter terminals, recreation spaces etc.

It appears that the definition of public spaces deal more with the accessibility, but the ‘publicness’ may not be able to define with boundaries. Religious buildings are essentially public but the degree of ‘publicness’ can be increased or decreased due to the atmosphere created in the space.

First manifestation of man

Architecture has been identified as the first manifestation of man, creating his own universe, that it has been stood for mans history, culture, civilization, revolution and universal harmony.

Susan Langer (1953) talks about ‘feeling and form’ in great architecture, she emphasizes, that the great architectural ideas rarely ever have arisen from the domestic needs, that they were manifested as temples, tombs, fortresses, halls and theatres making their domain essentially public.

Their image is a public realm because they tend to touch the souls deeply. Such spaces are called ‘religious spaces’ to the ordinary mind, mainly because they evoke deep feelings that respond to the inner souls of mankind.

Therefore architecture as one of the noble professions can make this happen to elevate the spirit of the soul of the mankind to greater degree for peace and happiness, beyond the boundaries of buildings.

Maybe the answer lies in Architecture and new dimension to space design in the 21st century, where such creations have begun to emerge giving a spiritual dimension to architecture of the 21st century.

Certain processes seem under way globally religious building designs to reflect ‘more public’ and multi-religious effects trying to gain a commonness to reach out for people.

More public gathering spaces seem to relate to history, events of the past, and create the ‘sense of humanity’ in the spaces, where there lies no boundary or separation of the ethnic or religious groups.

These concepts seem topical today, and the articulation of space in line with these to generate new architecture for people.

It is understood that in building design the degree in which these architectural attributes are composed matter to a greater extent, in the concerns of responses to the public. Visual attributes are concerned with the type of materials used and the technology of building design relates to the feelings of the general public.

Also the visual geometry that is created in the public eye with line, point, solid and space too modifies the responses to the public.

The tangible elements such as volume, scale, proportion are considered as the essential elements that create the visual qualities of the spaces. It has been found out, that the primary needs that people seek to satisfy in public spaces are those for comfort, relaxation, active and passive engagement and the discovery.

Sense of belongingness that is created within the public space is the most important of all that enlivens with the human participation. It is only through the study of architecture that provides for these needs of the public of this nature, that may change its face naturally for the paradigms shifts of the world.

- Architect Hiranthi Pathirana

Architects’ annual sessions 2008

Architects the initiator - The theme:

Annual Sessions of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects will be ceremonially inaugurated at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall on February 20.

The highlights of the Sessions would be the National Conference on Architecture which will be held on February 21 and the Architect 2008 Exhibition which is a mega exposition of Architects’ work and the trade will be held from February 20 to 24 and will occupy all the Exhibition spaces at the BMICH and the Sirimavo Bandaranaike Convention Center.

The keynote speaker will be eminent Architect Ulrik Plesner who has been working in Sri Lanka for many years where he also worked for a period in partnership with Archt. Geoffrey Bawa Currently he is the Managing Partner of Plesner Architects, Tel Aviv, Israel.

The National Conference on architecture will be on the theme “Architect the Initiator”. Many interesting presentations will be made by eminent professionals in the field of Architecture as well as allied professions from Sri Lanka and abroad on the Architects’ role as the “initiator” which places a huge cultural and environmental responsibility on the Architect.

The resultant work can be sustainable Architecture that acts as progenitors to the cultural, economic and the social development of the country.

This page will keep you updated on the events in the future issues.

CPD Programme

SLIA has initiated a series of programmes for the development of the architectural profession in its members. One such programme was organized by the Professional Affairs Board (PAB) of the SLIA held at the Waters edge, Battaramulla on 26th August 2005.

Outstanding architectural contributions of three of its members were presented in this programme under the main theme of “Towards the Excellence in Architecture”. It has given an opportunity for the members of the SLIA to review the outstanding works of our own members in Sri Lanka and abroad.

Archt. Dharshini Gamage & Archt. Sanja Saputantri of State Engineering Corporation presented the award winning design of the Court Complex, Kandy.

The award winning design of the new court complex marks a definite architectural intervention in the built fabric of the city of Kandy. It stands for correct architectural expression and superb articulation of space design. It had been able to absorb many challenges in design and construction stages.

Idea of Urban home: the architect’s role in its manifestations

The innumerable difficulties faced by the public in house designs are many.

It is important that we understand house design as a precession that deal with many sciences. The article features such issues for discussion, in the Urban settings.

Feature of a house design would be a regular component of the Arch watch that would enable the readers to understand the architects role in the design of houses. The main objective of this feature is to open up the issues in architectural house designs for the better understanding of the readers. It is important to understand that aesthetics alone does not govern the house design, particularly in the urban context.

Architecture combines many sciences and many other determining factors. House design in an urban setting can be identified as a comprehensive exercise that demands the attention of many forces. Urban houses has to fit in to urban house forms. Urban house is characterized as a private entity within a large lively mass of the urban domain. The science of handling design in this particular set up can be identified as an extremely sensitive task that perhaps only trained architects can do.

Urban house design is a process that determines many architectural interpretations of various issues that ranges from commercial values, contexts, site conditions and area, lifestyle, social issue, etc etc. Above all it stands for a greater challenge in the aesthetics at the concurrence of many issues related.

Undoubtedly it is the right architectural composition that is most considered factor and the aesthetics of space forms in the urban context at the end of the day. Spatiality of house design can be determined by various urban space and human relationships.

Consideration of family relationships Spatial relationships Individual spaces and private core.

Strengthening the concepts of family living Architectural manifestations in the spaces.

Psychological centers within the spaces Consideration of home as a singular entity Home and outside relationships.

Urban house design may address the issues pertaining to social integrity, social structure and other cultural manifestations related. At the same time it is an exercise on climate and ventilation factors in the urban environment.

The unitary factors of family style that is articulated with the space design is an exercise of house form. Therefore the assessment of livability of spaces should address both the physical and psychological factors concerned in design.

Urban house design thus characterized by identifying the correct composition of spaces, articulation of relationships among them, elemental characters best suited and for the right purpose and function, enhanced commercial values and above all, the fulfilment of user comfort and the aesthetics in the urban setting.

Therefore the exercise of architecture should serve a higher purpose in the urban context that should be governed by this profession.

Creating awareness on Architecture

Today with awareness created by education, travel people are more sensitive to the design aspects in buildings be they houses or infrastructure facilities and the aesthetics and the utility value of design are appreciated by all strata of society. It is the desire of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects to disseminate awareness to a wider audience through ArchWatch in association with Daily News.

ArchWatch will be a regular fortnightly feature from now on and will carry interesting features to create public awareness on various aspects of design both modern and historical and even important topics like the urban development laws and laws related to the environment.

The public will be able to reach the professional architect directly through an architectural advisory column to which we invite you to send in your queries and ArchWatch will include the element of fund to the page through the proposed architectural crossword and other such competitions.

I take this opportunity to thank the co-ordinators from Lake House as well as from the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects for their perseverance in their endeavour to re-launch the page and I know that the page will give you the public as much pleasure reading it as it will give us in compiling it for you.

Archt. Jayantha PERERA, FIA (SL), MSc (ARch), BSc (BE), President Institute of Architects

Taking architecture to the people

It is with great pleasure I take this moment to send in my thoughts to ArchWatch, the regular fortnightly feature aimed at creating a wider audience for the subject of architecture.

In an age and day where the general public is largely concerned of the quality of life in all aspects, the quality of life created by the built environment, commands equal attention.

As architects then, it is our prime responsibility to reach the public in a way to make known to the masses, on the role of architecture as a prime tool for enhancing the environment around us and the way we live.

ArchWatch thus, is a timely feature carrying interesting snippets an articles on many aspects of architecture that would be widely read by anyone interested, old or young.

I applaud the co-ordinators from Lake House and Sri Lanka Institute of Architects for their efforts in re-launching the page and I fervently hope that the hard work will positively pay off in terms of taking architecture to people.

Archt. Bernard GOEMZ, AIA (SL), MSc (Arch), BSc (BE),Chairman, Board of Architectural Publications, Sri Lanka Institute of Architects