\u201cMere color, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form, can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Oscar Wilde clearly had some thoughts on shades. Most of us do. But what does today\u2019s distinctly monochrome palette say about where we\u2019ve got to as a species?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Last September, Finnish Architectural Review <\/i><\/a>published its fourth issue of the year. On high-grade paper, it should not have been as daring as it was. Yet even the editorial acknowledged dedicating a magazine to color at a point in history when hues have \u201call but vanished from an architect\u2019s toolbox\u201d was pretty bold.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The publication is not alone in perceiving a prevailing sense of greyness about the world. In the UK, the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre<\/a> (Creative PEC) \u201ctracked the color of objects over time and found a substantial rise in the use of grey.\u201d The results, published in 2021, also revealed a significant decline in the prevalence of browns and yellows.<\/p>\n Sugamo Shinkin Bank \/ Nakaaoki Branch<\/a> by emmanuelle moureaux architecture + design<\/a>, Kawaguchi, Japan<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n The work, led by Britain\u2019s Science Museum Group, examined over 7,000 photographs, identifying the shade of every pixel to create a catalogue of colour. Or lack thereof. Dark charcoal grey was the most common, which \u2014 staggeringly \u2014 appeared in over 80% of all pictures. The contrast of a wooden telegraph machine from the mid-1800s, ornate communications cabinet rich in reds, yellows and browns, and a late-noughties silver, black and grey iPhone, casts the decline in sharp relief.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Materials drive design. Or at least feasible design. And this counts for aesthetics as much as things like durability and ergonomics. In the 21st century, we make things from other things which are much less adaptable in terms of color, and, against the infinite rusty hues of trees, way less colorful to begin with.\u00a0 <\/span>Nevertheless, the slide into greyscale is evident across the board, including products which could easily be toned to exacting specifications. Cars being one. Buildings another.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n 1140 Formosa Ave<\/a>. by Lorcan O\u2019Herlihy Architects [LOHA]<\/a>, Los Angeles, California<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In his piece, \u2018Coil Coatings: Architects\u2019 Secret to Brighter Metal Building Fa\u00e7ades<\/a>\u2018, architecture and communications specialist Eric Baldwin offers some hope that contemporary resources and materials are not binding us to a grey future by presenting a number of examples of bright coatings applied to modern exterior walls. Apparently, it\u2019s possible to recreate almost any color or effect. And in her collection, \u201910 Buildings Making Bold Statements with Color and Form\u2019<\/a>, Architizer\u2019s Nidhi Upadhyaya offered more eye-candy counterpoints celebrating the countless shades architects have at their disposal.<\/p>\n \u201cColorful backdrops and quirky aesthetics are accumulating millions of likes and saves on social media platforms like Instagram and Pinterest,\u201d she wrote at the time. Given the power of digital networks to make or break governments, let alone inspire design, the apparently-subconscious move to a more monochrome side of life is even more jarring. We\u2019re making things people are not naturally conditioned to notice.<\/p>\n Wolf Creek Library<\/a> by Leo A Daly<\/a>, Atlanta, Georgia, an example of bright coil coatings on metal building fa\u00e7ades<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Writing for PULP, the University of Sydney\u2019s student magazine, Simon Harris threw his hat into the greyness\u00a0 <\/span>conversation with an op-ed, Greyness<\/i><\/a>. \u201cA pervasive phenomenon in contemporary Sydney buildings,\u201d which is \u201cboth vernacular and pedigreed.\u201d The view that architectural conversations consistently fail to talk about the majority of architecture humans interact with daily is omnipresent \u2014 our tendency to focus on \u201ccapital A\u201d projects by practitioners who \u201cdefined the image of Architecture through each age\u201d rather than most buildings.<\/p>\n February\u2019s cover story in The Atlantic<\/i>,\u00a0\u2018The Anti-Social Century<\/a>\u2018, shed some light on modern architectural priorities for the majority of what we build (or what gets built in the publication\u2019s US homeland). For every landmark, there are thousands of off-the-shelf houses finished to meet our needs. Discussing an age of solitude and isolation, where points of connection are rarer and narrower than ever, the feature explained how we\u2019re spending more time at home than any other point in recent history. So homes have become bigger, and we\u2019ve filled them with more to fill the hours we would have spent out in the world.<\/p>\n ARCA Wynwood Design Center<\/a> by Esrawe Studio<\/a>, Miami, Florida<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n According to a US real estate broker quoted in the piece, contemporary house design now reflects this with a demand for television-mountable walls in every room. This \u2018necessity\u2019 often comes before fundamentals like the amount of light allowed into a space. It\u2019s thoroughly depressing \u2014 rooms are getting darker, save for the flicker of flatscreens showing films and series, which in 2022 led Vox<\/em> to ask \u201cwhy do so many TV shows and movies look like they were filmed in a grey wasteland<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n The point being, by taking our eyes off the look of the everyday, by focusing so much on monochrome modern materials, architecture has become the basic design of assets. An idea legitimized by a global housing crisis of our own making and an economic obsession with breakneck growth rather than solution-focused development. The sad fact is, the market demands building are built fast. And that means, for the most part, putting limited effort into designing a scheme because we need to move on to the next. In this environment, uniformity will always be the easiest option. Which isn\u2019t a declaration of architecture\u2019s death, but an admission that urbanscapes are increasingly lacking differentiation. And we\u2019re now so bored of what we see, we want Netflix and Prime at every possible point in our washed out worlds.<\/p>\n \n The Extended Entry Deadline for Architizer’s 2025 <\/i>A+Product Awards<\/i><\/span><\/a> is Friday, February 21st<\/strong>.<\/i> Get your brand in front of the AEC industry\u2019s most renowned designers by <\/i>submitting today<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n The post Color Optional: How Grayscale Became the Default Design Setting<\/a> appeared first on Journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Extended Entry Deadline for Architizer’s 2025 A+Product Awards is Friday, February 21st. 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