Nature’s palette

Have you ever driven past a building and thought that works well? If you discount the architectural design it’s self and look at the colour in isolation you may find the designer worked with natures palette. Taking the perceived colours of the surrounding foliage (if the developer left anything!) working that into the design of the building gives one a feeling of calm and tranquility.
What brought this to mind was a site visit last week to Eagle Cannon in Johannesburg. I came to screeching holt (I drive a red Alfa if anyone was behind me) a sea of red “terracotta” roofs hit me right where it hurts. This was my old holiday stomping grounds; the yellow red veldt that I knew had now been changed into what looked like a site map for low cost housing. And the student who was colouring in the site map was only given one crayon!
I know I said in the first blog manufacturers need to give us more colour but please keep that inside. We’re in Africa – an oil painting of intense rich chromatic colour. There’s more than enough inspiration if you just learn to match up natures own colour scheme.