The power of play

Office S&M co-founder Hugh McEwen explains his practice’s approach to colour and unpacks the notion of ‘playful’.

How does a playful approach to colour manifest itself in the built environment?

The architectural world sometimes views playful as a dirty word - it’s associated with being childlike, inexperienced or untested.

But we know that play is an incredibly robust way of working, when play means testing, learning and iterating. Then we talk about being ‘seriously playful’ - a good process for architects and designers to get involved in, even if it doesn’t result in a ‘playful’ outcome. More importantly, this approach can lead to an ease of understanding and clarity. In fact, we think more about ‘joyful’ than ‘playful’ architecture, as it talks more about an outcome.

For us, a looseness and lightness of how we work with colour and materials is a form of play. That’s about creating exteriors and interiors which have texture and variety instead of being monolithic and mechanistic.

Play is also about narrative. We took this approach at Graphic House in London’s Hackney, the refurbishment of an Edwardian house we carried out for two graphic designers. We told the story of the changes in a playful way, so existing elements are in warm plaster, and new parts and windows are painted mint green and yellow respectively.

One person’s playful is another person’s kitsch. Is there a risk of going too far? Or not far enough?

Playful architecture doesn’t manifest through coloured stick-on balconies and painted glass fins. Instead, it’s about introducing the idea of colour right at the start of the conversation with the client. Testing and iterating - the playful part of the process – involves playing with complementary or contrasting colours.

But when balconies are colour-washed to differentiate them, the playful approach is applied rather than part of the process. Because it doesn’t impact on the architecture, and it doesn’t really matter what the colour is as long as it’s different from the colour next to it.

However, if there’s a robust methodology behind an approach to colour, the result won’t be kitsch.

How does such an approach to colour impact on people?

It can have a positive effect on the wellbeing not just of users, but of passersby. Office S&M designed Salem House in the London borough of Newham as a speculative rental property, so we wanted to create a personality for it, and went through a playful process of testing our ideas.

We used colour theory to enlarge the scale, looking at complementary colours that push apart. Hence the pale pink for the walls and stronger green for the doors and windows. We also made sure it worked contextually, with the neighbouring buildings’ deep red and peachy colours.

This approach also feeds into legibility and wayfinding - how do you know which front door is yours? You’re using visual languages to help that.