Designing a space? Forget the ‘colour of the year’ and pay attention to how hues make you feel | Canada Voices

For Vancouver designer Craig Stanghetta of Ste Marie Studio, a fascination with colour reflects his curiosity about how it influences moods and spaces. With a background in acting and a lifelong love of film, he finds inspiration in cinematic palettes, crafting spaces that are visually compelling and emotionally resonant, including Toronto’s Japanese retro-futurist sushi bar Tora and Vancouver’s new coastal Italian restaurant, Elio Volpe.

At the Interior Design Show’s Vancouver edition on Sept. 29, Stanghetta will present a talk called Crafting Spaces That Resonate. Here, he explains how he creates that kind of impact with bold hues, and why you shouldn’t pay too close attention to the glut of “colours of the year.”

You’ve described your process of tackling a project as building a world around an idea. How does colour help you communicate that story?

I’ll use the example of the restaurant Bao Bei in Vancouver, which was my first project. When the owner, Tannis Ling, and I were conceptualizing it, we always had stills from the movie In The Mood For Love by Wong Kar-Wai. Colour has a time association; in that film there are these late 60s, early 70s muted tonalities. Isolating that lived-in colour quality has a way of being a time machine and tapping into a sense of nostalgia. We didn’t really mimic the film, but it was about how the quality of colour evokes this sensibility, a memory of feeling.

How do you approach the rules of colour theory, about complementary opposites and finding the right balance to make the colour schemes in your designs feel right?

I try to use complementary colours in ratios that are not overwhelming; one way to do that is to use subdued tones. In the Vancouver restaurant Kissa Tanto, the wood has a little bit of cherry, and the walls are a sage green; those complementary tones feel good together but are pulled back from their primary versions. And then blues and pinks are positioned in places where they don’t interface much; most of the blue in the space faces west whereas the pink faces east, they’re kind of hard to see together in your field of view. That’s kind of my cheat code. I didn’t realize for years that’s how I was making decisions.

If you had to choose, which colour would you say had the most surprising effect on a space you’ve designed?

In the reception area at Vancouver fitness studio Jaybird, there’s this really deep, burnt ochre colour we chose to prompt people to get out of their head and into their bodies, or a primordial, collective unconscious. It was really anachronistic for the world of fitness to veer away from creating bright, mirror-filled spaces, but we run away from trends and instead try to unlock a narrative or emotional resonance in a space.

Are there areas in a home that people often overlook when considering colour?

Bedrooms and guest bathrooms are the low hanging fruit where you can create a distinct, emotional connection. You can basically program the room from a colour standpoint and have it affect your mood and help you feel like – when you pass the threshold of a bedroom – you’re in a sanctuary. You can now settle in and relax. Your guest washroom is where you can go nuts because no one’s living there; just go crazy in there and do something wild.

What about all the “colours of the year” that are crowned by decor magazines and paint companies?

I think they’re fun and cool and a great marketing ploy. I appreciate that they centre colour within the design narrative. That said, they’re of course somewhat meaningless. We tend to run away from those colours; we’re trying to be the ones, hopefully, driving an emerging trend.

How do you see the role of colour in interior design evolving?

Designers are starting to be able to leverage the role of colour and light in health and wellness. A lot of the work that we’re doing is looking into how you use chromotherapy. How do certain colour and light temperatures affect your lymphatic or vascular system or your mood? When there’s data that’s saying, “this is going to impact not only how you feel, but, physiologically, how your body operates,” then we’re completely beholden to having to get a deeper understanding of how to make spaces that do that.

This interview has been condensed and edited.

IDS Vancouver runs from Sept. 26 to 29. For more, visit interiordesignshow.com.