The Role of Colour in ‘Health and Wellbeing’ of the Built Environment

I was invited recently to give a keynote lecture on the role of colour in the built environment, at the Spring Academic Conference of the Korea Society of Colour Studies held on 29 May 2010, in Korea. This was a surprise as well as an honour for me, your editor, because colour is indeed an important component of our built environment, and without the presence of colour, our environment would be dull and depressing. There should be more research done to study the role of colour in our built environment, especially in relation to the partially blind, infants, hospital patients and people who are for some reason or the other feel trapped and unhappy with their way of life. Colour should be included in the consideration of sustainable development of buildings as an important social and environmental factor. A built environment that is attractive and contributes to the ‘feel good’ experience of people should also be an important economic consideration for sustainable development. The built environment – both indoor and outdoor of buildings in any community, school, place of work, sport arena, transport and in urban and rural areas are very important factors, contributing to how people feel about their health and wellbeing in their workplace or at home. Health and wellbeing is recognized as an important mark of quality in the Code for Sustainable Homes in the UK. The US building environmental assessment method – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) encompasses the issues in the environmental criteria that would contribute to the health and wellbeing of people working and living in their building environment. One of the factors that can contribute to how people feel about their environment – contributing to the perception of health and wellbeing is colour, and this has not been easily addressed in any of the national environmental assessment methods for buildings. Colour is a visual perceptual property; and plays an important role in the environment within which we live, work and play. It can cause a dramatic effect in changing and improving the aesthetic appeal of particular areas [1]. The building surface affects how the building is perceived, whether colour is used in school classrooms, hospital wards and waiting rooms, children’s play areas, sport and entertainment arena, danger/emergency zones, storage shed in our garden or for marking our space boundary such as in fencing. The colours used in the design decor can affect our perceptions of the environment that surrounds us. The colours chosen in these areas can have an inspirational uplifting effect or conversely they can create drab unwelcoming situations. Colour is also used to mark our identity in many situations; as in business, a company’s brand or to reflect our own personalities. The wide application of colour may make it seem a complex phenomenon [2]. Its presence in the physical environment generates sensations and excitement. There is a relationship between man, the environment and colour; the human society would look uninteresting and formless if the physical environment and everything in it was colourless. Our built environment should not be