Colour? What Colour? A difficult understanding between urban environment'
professionals and users.
Authors: caramelo gomes Cristina 
Published: July 2023

The built environment witnessed in the last years significant challenges
and changes. From the growing of population inhabiting urban areas, natural
disasters, and a pandemic context, built environment disclosers its impact
in human experience. Based on the concepts of human centred design and
social and cultural sustainability, urban solutions have been developing to
improve and qualify user experience. The layout of public and private spaces
has been challenged in its formal configuration, dimensions, and equipment,
by means of research, available data, and the success of some practices.
This movement has been beneficial to city centres, but it is expanding to
dwelling peripheries, boosting multifunctionalities and solutions oriented
to human requirements and expectancies answering to a need well recognised
and experienced during the pandemic context.Despite the changes and the good
examples, colour as a vital parameter of visual communication, is still
neglected and applied as a simple aesthetic component. Repeatedly, the
chromatic palettes are based on (inter)national fashion trends, disregarding
the geography, climate, and culture of the place. Colour focus and/or blur
our attention, while emphasising and/or disguising an element in its
context, organising the space, aiding in orientation while communicating
messages and symbols that illustrate the identity of the place and the
community. Colour has the ability of challenge the perception of the volumes
- despite their nature and scale – and spaces regarding their formal shape,
proportions, visual weight, and texture. Furthermore, colour as an element
of urban environment, expresses the hierarchy of the elements and their
order in the environmental composition with respect to function, structure,
etc. Furthermore, colour defines how individuals visually experience the
environ, and as a medium it gives significance, emotional attitude, and
functional information, emerging as a crucial attribute in human perception
of the built environment.Numerous reasons can justify the repeated
negligence in the use of colour in urban environ: the fear of using colour,
unawareness, (or lack of skills) about how to use it, the copy of
international and/or awarded models, and the use of finishing materials and
colour tendencies, among others. However, this is a common reality for
designers and architects, which sets the hypothesis of these professionals
are unaware of the roles performed by colour and its impact in human daily
living, while experiencing environments, products, and communication
systems.The aim of this research paper is to raise the discussion regarding
the way colour is neglected in the design of urban space although its
importance to define the user experience. From the discussion we expect to
have a better understanding of the problem and propose some guidelines to
minimise it. To achieve the expected results, this piece of research will be
supported by literature review related with the identified keywords and the
analysis of some case studies in the Portuguese context. Literature review
aims to explore the concepts and justify its importance not only for this
study but in the urban planning, and the case studies to illustrate the
(un)aware use of colour and its impact in place and community identity.