Garden Office Blog

Intensify an Interior - Colour and Texture

By Francesca McGlone on 29th November, 2010

Colour and texture should be the main elements present when creating a visually stimulating interior. Colour can have a dramatic influence upon mood and can therefore be used to emphasise the functionality of a garden room for instance, which could include energising, relaxing or working. Texture adds a further dimension that keeps a space engaging.

A recent installation by Los Angeles designers Balls-Nogues, called Gravity’s Loom combines the compatible mix of colour and texture. As a suspension piece, consisting of multi-coloured threads draped from the ceiling of the entrance hall of Indianpolis’ Museum of Art, its impact is one that rests on the vivid decorative colour that defines its three dimensional form.

Bands of rainbow colour are suspended in the air, changing shape as the viewer walks around its frame, as colour and texture team up beautifully. The pattern and shape of the installation is based on a late-baroque cornice, so that its origins in ornate architecture are evident in a sculptural form, while colour is displayed translucently, similar to a rainbow or a butterfly’s wing.

In the November Edition of the online Icon Eye Magazine Benjamin Ball, one half of the design duo responsible for Gravity’s Loom, commented; “As we work more and more we develop a greater understanding of the qualities that these installations take on, how they can expand as artwork, and how they can expand as craft, design and architecture-we don’t see these fields as mutually exclusive.” It could be said that architecture is a form of art and design that can be further enhanced or added to through the endless possibilities provided by texture and colour.

A building is not necessarily finite in terms of its artistic evolution; as it can become host to an ever-changing collection of interior splendour, where colour and texture combinations transform the ambiance of a space.

Ball also commented; "Together the strings form a complete unity with colour coalescing to enable us to paint in three dimensions.” The marriage of colours and a creation of spatial intricacy that Gravity’s Loom displays is evidence of how an architectural space can act as a gallery of sorts, made immediately more engaging by the introduction of colour and texture. Even simple touches such as laying down a rug can introduce both colour and texture to an interior, whilst making a statement about taste. Fur, wool or weaved plant fibres and patterns that range from a classic Persian rug to contemporary slabs of colour, swirling floral designs or animal print can help define the character and feel of a space.

Tapestries hung on hard walls can create a balance of texture and create the same sense of soft material delicacy achieved by Gravity’s Loom; its woven portals of light create dimensions similar to the net like the effect of entangling branches that when contrasted with the harder edges of a building, amplify the strength within the pairing of nature and architecture.

The brightness of flowers in bloom can exist as an element that influences colour and texture in a garden studio. Even the brilliance of colourless powdery snow against blue skies can appeal to our senses. The soft, fluency of a garden becomes framed by the angular edges of windows and the straight lines of a studio. It is why buildings held in the soft hands of a natural landscape are more striking than those lost in an urbanised, concrete jungle of crowded architecture.

If you would like to take a look at Balls - Nogues Gravity Loom installation for yourself, visit http://www.iconeye.com.
 


Category:  Architecture and Design

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