Historic district color schemes
Paul F Austin
The city I work for if thinking about creating an architectural style for all
new & renovated etc. commercial building, specifically a "Florida Vernacular"
style (Florida cracker & Key West mixture). The problem I'm having is trying to
find a way to spell out a required color palette; no one seems to do this in a
very defined way. Most of the cities I've called have a general color term or
historic period and leave it up to an architectural review board to approve
someone's specific color choice. My boss wants a definition of "pastel". Any
ideas on how to define this in an ordinance or guidelines?
Thanks for any assistance or ideas.
Martha Steuart
Planning Division
City of Palm Bay, Florida
Brevard County
J and L Miranda
Massachusetts. In dealing with color, all colors are to be reviewed by the
commission. Except white. If you want to paint ANYTHING white, you can do
that. The guidelines say this several times, and after the second or third
time, I started laughing every time I saw it -- not exactly sure why, just
that it was so predictable -- it just started sounding like 'if you don't
want trouble, just paint it WHITE -- GOT IT???". You might want to contact
the city of Charleston, SC. I know that there was some paint analysis work
done in the mid/late 1980's and had one manufacturer's special line
dedicated to the results. These were used as reference for colors on
construction. You could probably get a copy of their ordinance to see how
their requirements were phrased.
If you want a definition of pastel, I guess you could say something
technical like hue (pure color) plus white equals tint (which is the more
appropriate term for 'pastel', although probably not as understood in common
usage) -- that's reaching back to first year color theory. You could then
specify that the value be equal or above 'x' (whatever/on the light end) on
a gray scale from 1-10 (ends being white and black). I've never actually
seen any guidelines read that way, though. And it would mean that staff or
the commission (whoever would determine compliance) would understand the
definitions of 'value' and so forth and how to compare colors against such a
scale. Some people really have difficulty doing this. Oh wait -- here's
'tint' from theWebster's: "a variation of a color produced by adding white
to it and characterized by a low saturation with relatively high lightness."
The definition for 'pastel' is much more vague (not good for guidelines when
you're trying to be specific): "any of various pale or light colors".
If it is pure tint that is required (vs. a shade -- hue plus black, or a
tone -- hue plus grey), the above might work, but it would probably be
off-putting to owners or contractors just because of the language. If your
guidelines have a section for definitions, you'd have to define 'tint',
'saturation', 'lightness' and so forth. Is there a reason not to just go
out with one manufacturer's paint wheel and get some paint colors from
existing acceptable color schemes to use as examples for the general public
and the commission? From my own experience (not writing guidelines, just
observing how people choose to paint their houses), you've really got to
watch the 'saturation' as well. What might look 'lighter' than a pure hue
on a paint chip can be really hideously bright.
Good luck!
Lori
Paul F Austin <pau...@digital.net> wrote in message
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