This is Shea Stadium, the former home of the New York Mets baseball team. It was infamously know for the color on the outside in the same way a pig wearing lipstick is. The giant dully sterile concrete grey building met with much complaints when it was unveiled. The failure of the colors to welcome the user was a major concern so the designers added orange and blue panels of color sporadically to the exterior "fixing" the problem. While the added color was a nice addition it's lack of consistence or flow made for a confusion among users as to what it was doing or what purpose it served. The light Tone of the colors accomplishes the goal of playfulness, especially when interacting with the dark tones of concrete. The color and tone of the panels don't interact with the scale of the building in a way that makes the user feel as though they are taking part in a very important event, it makes it feel more like a kids park or small scale circus.
Inside the stadium however tone and color are used effectively to distinguish between the different levels of seating. That helps people in way-finding and is a reference for ticket sales. This is a common technique in stadium design. Overall the usage of color and tone on the exterior is where this stadium fails. The panels of color are gingerbread house design and because of there ambiguity and scale it is apparent to the users passive thoughts and joked about with there active thoughts.
No comments:
Post a Comment