The Effects of Place Meaning and Facility Meaning on the Compatible Color for Landscape

Color is one of the main factors for environmental design, and also plays an important role in our everyday life. Many studies have indicated that different environments, buildings or objects all have different functions and meanings, and also have different compatible colors as well. Researchers have further suggested that the meaning of the objects might influence their compatible color. However, many studies which about environmental compatibility usually focus on aspect of vision and compatible colors of single place or single object. While buildings or facilities have their own meanings, the environments where the facilities were placed has their own meanings as well. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to discuss the effects of place and facility meanings on compatible colors. It is hoped that we can explore that compatible color not only affected by vision but also affected by facility meaning and place meaning. The current study tried to explore the aforementioned issues from three different perspectives. First of all, the first study will extend the study of Cheng et al. (2016), and use image instead of meaning to explore the effects of the meanings on compatible color. Using the concept of self-congruity, the study suggested that when the place and the color images are congruent, the color would be considered the compatible color of the place. An online survey was conducted to understand how did people think about the images of places and the colors. And then analyzed with the data of compatible colors from the study of Cheng et al. (2016). The results indicated that color/place compatibility is positively related to their image congruity. The second study used inductive method to understand that how do people think about compatible color of different place and facility, and further explore that weather the context of the place affects compatible color of facility. Through the corresponded analysis, second study explored the colors associated with the different facilities in different outdoor recreational places. The results showed different places and different facilities indeed have different compatible colors. For example, the colors with higher brightness and saturation were more likely to associate with theme park; the colors with high brightness and low saturation were more associated with accommodation facilities. In addition, the results also showed that the compatible colors for certain facility would be different when it was located in different places, and the effect of place meaning would be stronger than facility meaning. From the deductive perspective, a web-based photo survey was conducted in the third study. Respondents were asked to rate the color compatibility of a landscape facility with 37 different colors, while the meanings of the facility and landscape were randomly assigned.Results showed that changing place label would make the compatibility of color be different, which was similar to the results of the second study. The facility in the place, the place meaning would all affect the compatible colors of the facility. Furthermore, the results also indicated that chroma, value, and hue all have different effects on compatibility of color. Through these three studies, we may conclude that meaning would affect the compatible color. According the results of the first study let us know that congruent meanings are one of the reason for color to be compatible. Further, the results of second study and third study suggested that different places and facilities will have different compatible color, and the compatible colors for certain facility would be different when it was located in certain places. The results suggested that compatible color would be affected by meaning, and the place meaning could be one of the main reasons on compatible color of facility than facility meaning. As the conclusion, results of this study suggested that compatible color of landscape not only affected by vision but also by the meaning as well. In addition, when objects are located in the environment, the environment context will also influence the compatible color. The present study suggested a new approach to color compatibility assessments, and supplies an appropriate planning policy of environmental design to create the environment that can make people feel comfortable. The results can also help to make facility to become one of elements to enhance environment.