Space Planning and Color Selection
Do you find yourself bumping into furniture and other items in your house or office? Ever been at cross roads trying to choose color combinations for your interiors? Well, keep reading. Undoubtedly, space planning and color selection is an essential step in the interior design process. Other than selecting furniture, color and finishes for a room, an outstanding space is carefully thought of and mapped out in the space planning process.
So, what is space planning? Given a space, room, house or office, an interior designer is first tasked with planning the space to create and transform it into an aesthetically pleasing one. This is literally organizing the space, furniture and functions to work together whilst accommodating the needs of the users of that space. Without space planning, a room can end up awkward or underutilized.
Considerations for Space Planning
Space planning culminates in great efficiency for any room and increased productivity for businesses. These are some of the considerations to ponder on before you start planning your space.
The Function of that Space
Be it an office space or a house, it is essential to know the goals of the users. For an organization, getting an insight to goals such as employee engagement, employee health and collaborative spaces is a great place to start. This will enable the interior designer to plan your space to support these long term goals and thereby create a suitable environment to thrive.
For homes, getting to know the uses of a room will inform the space planning process. Is it multifunctional? Is it common? Is it connective? Is it recreational? Getting to know the use of the space will help design it to suit its purpose.
Time Spent & Number of Users
Next, knowing the users of that space and the amount of time they spend in that space is important. If it is an office, employees may sit at their desk for hours, they might collaborate in groups or somewhere in between. This will give great insight to the kind of space created, how comfy it is for the users, what kind of furniture to be used, what colors to use and how much light to be allowed into the room.
Ergonomics
Finally, we get to focus on the usability of the space. Something that is ergonomically friendly to the users. Carefully designed spaces and furniture allows employees to both sit and stand comfortably.
Color Selection for your space
Having carefully considered your space, one other aspect to make this space awesome is color selection. This can be the most challenging part of interior design. That’s because colors are fickle. There are uncountable shades to choose from and they all need to be put together in the appropriate proportions. Otherwise, harmony will be hard to achieve. Luckily we have a few rules to put into consideration.
The 60-30-10 Rule in Color Selection
This ensures that your colors stay balanced. So, how does it work? This rule makes use of 3 colors, the dominant shade is meant to take almost 60% of the room. This is usually some type of neutral color that take much of the space without making it feel overwhelming. 30% of the space will be taken by a secondary color which in most cases is a bit bolder than the former. Finally, the 10% is what we term as the accent – your boldest shade.
Warm Colors Vs Cool Colors
A color wheel is a chart representing relationships between colors. The term “warm vs. cool colors” refers to where specific shades fall on the color wheel. Vibrant shades like red, yellow, orange are considered warm colors while on the other side of the spectrum, blue, green, purple and great are considered as cool colors. The choice of colors will affect the energy of the space.
Warm colors bring a welcoming feel to a room, they are ideal in recreational spaces. On the other hand, cool colors are more subdued, they thrive in offices or bedrooms – spaces where calming energy is appreciated.
The Complementary Color Scheme
This is one of the simplest color scheme because it involves only two shades of color. In particular, it uses two shades placed directly opposite each other on the color wheel. For instance, you get combinations like yellow and purple or red and green. These color pairings are extremely high contrast, bringing strong energy to a space. In this case, it is best used in small doses. Think of these as accent colors.
These are rules to start you off, sometimes the best place to start is with the colors you love – thus you are not bound by the traditional color schemes above. Your favorite color can act as your base color, then you can create color schemes around it.
Once you are done with planning your space and selecting your colors, you are halfway through creating an aesthetically pleasing space.
Do you need an expert to help in Space Planning and Color Selection? Talk to us today on 0722 527 499. We will be glad to walk the journey of perfecting your interiors.
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