How to Select Colours for Your Facade
The facade should highlight the architecture of the house and help it match the surroundings, so that your house fits nicely and harmoniously into its environment. Colour is a wide-ranging word that covers four important qualities:
- Hue - red, blue, yellow.
- Value - weight, lightness and darkness.
- Chroma - purity - the amount of colour compared to the amount of white and black.
- Temperature - cool and warm colours.
External factors may play a significant role in how we perceive the same colour:
- Light - colours are perceived differently in daylight, direct sunlight, shade, moonlight and in artificial light.
- Distance - a colour's strength changes depending on the distance from which you are looking at it.
- Surface - smooth, textured, flat, shiny, etc.
- Reflection - most surfaces reflect vivid colours from surfaces closest to them.
The selection of colours is one the most important agent in how we perceive the aesthetics of a given facade. The colour determines whether we perceive the facade as being light, heavy, intrusive or just anonymous.
Facade colours are usually toned down. People are often surprised at how bright the colour they selected from the colour chips at the paint shop is when they see it on a fully illuminated large facade space. Always make sure to get a colour sample that you can apply on to the facade before you make your decision.
Remember - when you apply the colour sample, avoid choosing the most visible wall, but find a spot where you can easily cover it without the colour showing through if you should decide on a different colour.
Certain colours seem more natural than others all surroundings considered. Especially the "pure" colours, such as vivid blue, vivid green and not least purple hues, which do not have a natural similarity to conventional building materials.