ISSN 1753-7223

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issue 1, 2007 << back to contents page

Significance of Colour on Room Character: Study on Dominantly Reddish and Greenish Colours in North- and South-facing Rooms

Maud Hårleman, Inga-Britt Werner and Monica Billger*

School of Architecture and Built Environment, Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

*School of Architecture, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden

Summary

Room character attributable to colour appearance and spatial evaluation in different compass orientations has been studied. Rooms of the same colour, but observed in light from different compass directions will appear differently, in particular their identity colours will differ. A study is carried out in Sweden in two identical rooms, north- and south-facing. Seventy-two subjects evaluated and compared the experimental rooms. The inherent colours were six pinkish and five greenish colours, all except one in two nuances, plus one yellowish and one bluish colour, in total 13 colours. Description of room character was aided by semantic scales. Data were statistically processed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program to analyse connections between spatial evaluation, inherent colour and compass orientation. The NCS colour vocabulary was also used. Finally, verbal descriptions using the subjects own words were used as a supplementary method to unfold nuances in response. The study showed that differences in hue and nuance affected evaluation of room character. Subjects reacted differently in pinkish and greenish rooms, describing distinct colour connotations. Differences in direction of illumination caused weakening or strengthening of associations linked to the colours by colour connotations.

Main Sections

• Introduction
• Background
• Study Design
• Study Results
• Discussion
• Conclusions

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