Color At Its Best. On The Second Look

2023 Author: Hannah Pearcy | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 11:39

Not everything is as simple as it appears at first glance. Gray is not necessarily gray, and colorful campus life actually unfolds behind a great range of colors. In short: the second look is always worthwhile. Examples from Armin Scharf.

On the slope

What offers in mountain regions when the space is getting narrower? Right, you build into the slope, to visit, for example, in the Graubünden town of Castasegna. Instead of positioning itself broadly, the body of the single-family house remains narrow towards the valley side, but lengthens to the rear and penetrates the slope on the back. This slim appearance with only a few openings on the facade is dominated by the very rough plaster, whose structure is reminiscent of the stone plinth of the surrounding farm buildings. The single-layer, manually applied plaster consists of lime mortar, cement and rough stone aggregates. He accentuates the idea of the "archetype of a thick wall", as the architects note. The building, which was built in 2013, received recognition for this year's Caparol Architecture Prize.

Talking facade

The extension of the Kunstmuseum Basel divides minds - some are full of praise, others complain about the gray monumentality in the middle of the city. The façade, designed as a monolithic masonry, consists of layers of bricks that protrude back and forth, which underline the horizontal character of the building - and creates a very interesting play of shadows in shades of gray. Interesting: there is a wide, three-meter-high, all-round frieze that has been reinterpreted with the help of LED illumination. There are LED strips in the joints of the stone layers. Invisible from the street, they illuminate the fillet in the stone above. The reflection creates an indirect light, which is diffuse, but can be controlled overall so that the frieze becomes a kind of display. 1306 pixels work in each of the 40 joints,each consisting of four LEDs. The facade can transform itself into a subtly luminous, active surface - and project text or free forms.

Colorful campus

Usually the term “colorful” is frowned upon among color planners, stands for the thoughtless combination of highly saturated hues. But colorful can also be refreshing - especially when it comes to a young neighborhood. Young in a double sense, because the Boeselburg in Münster is intended for students. Instead of the old Boeselburg from the 1970s, the Studentenwerk built a new ensemble of four blocks, which offer a total of 18,000 square meters of living space and should alleviate the lack of space in the university city. 535 students now find space behind insulated buildings with bright colors. The colors should also convey identity to the residents.

Scrabble for the wall

The Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Medicine (IWM) in Tübingen researches teaching and learning using digital technologies. Around 80 scientists from various disciplines work together in the former women's clinic in the university city. An orientation system was installed to help you find your way around the historic, now newly used building. A Stuttgart office designed a scrabble-style system to match the function of the building. Letters placed vertically and horizontally next to each other show the visitor the way to their goal - an idea that comes across with a wink and that constantly confronts digital researchers with the analog world.