Walking Through A Rainbow

The Head Office of Asian Paints in Dhaka, Bangladesh showcases the brand employing a meaningful interpretation of colours. The design by Utopian Associates allows one to literally walk through a catalogue of paints which the company manufactures.

- Devyani Jayakar

If one were to design the office of a company which manufactures paints, what would the theme be centred around? Colour, right? However Soumitra Majumder, Sukanta Basu and Dibya Sen of Utopian Associates decided to circumvent the trite and bypassed obvious moves such as saturating the upholstery or walls with colour.

“But obviously, we still had to use colour. In choosing an alternate path for the concept, this 14,000 sq ft office for Asian Paint in Dhaka has been interpreted as a walk through the company’s catalogue of available shades,” says Dibya. This is an office which is visited by customers, buyers and vendors to discuss types of paints and techniques of applying the paint.” However, the utility oriented brief also came with a tight budget.

“Colours are made of pixels which create larger wholes when they come together,” explains Soumitra. “The whole look and feel of this space is based on the cuboid or square form of the pixel.” Blank walls were identified to display various collages of colours in a VIBGYOR sequence, so that there is a continuity in the tones.

“Our original recce of the site showed that there was plenty of natural light, since the building has glazing on three sides. From there came the inspiration of using the colours as they would appear if refracted by a prism; like a spectrum” says Sukanta. “Even the cuboid light fittings have been installed in a VIBGYOR sequence, while the cabins have different shades of the same colour.”