Somewhere over the Rainbow: Vanceva World of Color Awards

Colour can have a profound effect on our mood, as well as on how we perceive the world around us. There are few environments in which this matters more than in a hospital setting, where the correct use of colour can help to lift the mood of patients, staff and other users. Innovative use of colour at the Wilhelmina Children's Hospital in Utrecht helped Dutch firm LIAG Architecten en Bouwadviseurs pick up the top prize in the 2018 Vanceva® World of Color Awards™, with a design for a multicoloured bridge that connects an existing oncology department with a new children’s clinic.

The elevated walkway that links the hospital with the new Princess Máxima Center for Pediatric Oncology is an excellent example of how colour can enhance an architectural project by introducing a more lively and friendly atmosphere. The bridge is lined with approximately 650 pieces of colourful glass that create the effect of a glass “rainbow”. Daylight passing through the coloured panes produces a dynamic and continuous spectrum along the 160-metre-long passage, which helps to evoke feelings of fun, play and good health. According to one member of the awards jury, the project “achieves a wonderful fusion of colour and light to positively impact the lives of children and families undergoing the most difficult of challenges.”

The architects specified various combinations of 15 different Vanceva® coloured interlayers, which are produced by global materials manufacturer Eastman. Vanceva’s® colourful PVB films are laminated between layers of glass, in this case by Thiele Glas Werk GmbH in Germany, to create panels that can be used for a wide range of exterior and interior applications. The combination of films allows for more than 17,000 transparent, translucent or solid colour options to be produced, creating infinite possibilities for bespoke solutions that can affect the character or ambience of a space.

LIAG Architecten en Bouwadviseurs secured the Exterior category in the Vanceva® World of Color Awards™ with a project that demonstrates a truly creative use of laminated colour glass, as well as exceptional aesthetic quality. The annual international competition recognises innovative uses of colour in built environments, and invites architects, interior designers, glass fabricators, glazing engineers and other industry professionals to submit projects that utilise the Vanceva® colour interlayer system in new and exciting ways.

Anyone looking for inspirational applications of colour in contemporary architecture can find numerous examples in a book detailing the entries to the World of Color Awards 2018. These include a brightly coloured gym in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and a rainbow-like walkway suspended from the side of a cliff in Beijing, China. The winner of the Interior category was a special-needs school in Salt Lake City, Utah, that uses high-contrast accents of bright red to assist wayfinding.

Entrants to next year’s World of Color Awards™ may wish to try out a tool developed by Vanceva® to help architects and designers make accurate colour choices. The free online Color Selector allows users to input standard colour formats such as RAL, Pantone, NCS and RGB, which are then converted into a Vanceva® colour. Users can instantly download a handy technical data sheet or request samples of any colour to be delivered directly to their door. If they are unsure which colour would work best, they can opt for a sample kit from collections including Vanceva’s® Foundation Colors, Specialty Colors, White or Earth Tones Collection. With so many colour options to choose from, and the Color Selector making it easy to get just the right hue, expectations are already high for the 2020 edition of the Vanceva® World of Color Awards™.

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