How Color Makes Our Home a Great Place to Live

Our home is much more than just a shell. It is the place where we find peace, recharge our energy, feel safe, and identify with our lives. Color can play a crucial role in transforming rooms into a home where we feel comfortable, can recharge, and enjoy living.

In the new episode of the “Typisch Wohnen” podcast, I talk with Kai Pötting and Frederic Klos about how much our physical environment influences our experiences and behavior—and why color plays a much bigger role in this than we generally realize.

It’s not just about wall colors. We always perceive spaces as a whole: ceilings and floors, materials and surfaces, pigments and dyes, natural and artificial light, shadows, reflections, and even the view out the window all combine in our brains to create an overall atmospheric effect. This effect can calm or energize us, convey a sense of security, provide orientation, and help us feel connected to a place.

Drawing on my research and projects in the fields of housing, work, education, and healthcare, I’ll share what we know today about how color can promote well-being—and which insights can be directly applied to your own home.

After all, good living isn’t just about something looking nice. It means creating an environment where we feel physically and emotionally comfortable, are proud of our home, identify with it, and look forward to coming home every day.

A conversation about color as a fundamental part of our quality of life—and about how we can design spaces in a way that benefits us.

For Le Corbusier, color was not merely a decorative element, but an essential tool for shaping space: “In architecture, color is just as powerful a means as the floor plan and the section. Or rather: polychromy is an integral part of the floor plan and the section themselves.”

Prof. Dr. Axel Buether’s lecture takes up this idea and expands on it using insights from modern perception and color psychology. After all, architecture does not arise solely from floor plans, sections, construction, and materials—it takes shape in our perception. Light and color influence how we experience spatial boundaries, proportions, and distances; how we orient ourselves; and the atmosphere a space creates.

Color thus becomes a dimension of architectural design in its own right. It structures spaces, alters their perceived size and depth, creates a sense of belonging and identity, and influences our emotional experience as well as our behavior. Using examples from architecture, interior design, and healthcare facilities, Axel Buether demonstrates how this potential can be harnessed today in a targeted, evidence-based manner—beyond purely subjective matters of taste.

This lecture offers a new perspective on a dimension of design whose impact is ubiquitous yet is often underestimated in the architectural design process: Those who design architecture shape perception—and, in doing so, always shape color as well.

AIV Frankfurt Summer Festival 2026 – “Join Us in Building the Spaces of Tomorrow”
August 13, 2026 | Lufthansa Group Hangar One, Frankfurt am Main
7:00 p.m. | Keynote by Prof. Dr. Axel Buether: “Color as a Dimension of Architecture”

Colors shape architecture far beyond their aesthetic impact. They influence orientation, atmosphere, well-being, social interaction, and health—mostly subconsciously, but with measurable consequences for people’s experiences and behavior.

The lecture focuses on the question of why color design in architecture and interior design today requires a shift in scientific perspective. While many design principles are still based on formal-aesthetic theories from the early 20th century, findings from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and perceptual psychology show how colors affect humans as biological orientation systems.

Drawing on current research and international case studies, Prof. Dr. Axel Buether demonstrates how evidence-based color psychology can help ensure that architecture is consistently tailored to the needs of its users—from educational and workplace environments to healthcare facilities and public spaces.

The lecture is aimed at architects, engineers, and anyone who views design not merely as the creation of form, but as a responsibility toward the human experience.

Presentation at the summer festival of the Frankfurt am Main Association of Architects and Engineers (AIV), Thursday, August 13, 2026

How much health is there in a room?

More than we see—and far more than has been taken into account in many planning processes to date. Interior spaces are not neutral backdrops. Their colors, lighting conditions, materials, proportions, and spatial structures constantly influence how safe we feel, how well we can orient ourselves, whether we can concentrate or relax, and the extent to which our bodies are stressed or supported by the environment.

Under the theme “Aesthetics & Health – How Interior Design Influences Our Well-Being,” the 2026 Interior Design Summit will bring together leading voices from interior design, architecture, medicine, psychology, research, and planning practice in Berlin from November 13 to 15. I am very pleased to help shape this pioneering professional conference organized by the bdia—the Association of German Interior Architects—with a keynote address and a master class.

From an Aesthetic Choice to a Health-Related Goal

Interior design is still primarily judged on the basis of formal aesthetic criteria. The discussion centers on whether colors, materials, and shapes complement one another, conform to a particular style, or convey a contemporary impression. These criteria remain important—but they are not enough.

The crucial question is not merely what a space looks like, but above all: What effect does it have on the people who spend time there?

Does it promote a sense of direction and emotional security? Does it support concentration, communication, or recovery? Does it reduce stress and sensory overload? Does it convey a sense of protection and safety? Does it stimulate without being overwhelming? And does it take into account the diverse physical, psychological, and social needs of its users?

Health-promoting interior design begins when such objectives are not merely asserted after the design is complete, but are systematically incorporated into the planning process from the very beginning.

Keynote: Color as a Factor in Health

In my keynote address , “Color as a Health Factor,” I explain why the colors of light and surfaces should not be viewed merely as decorative choices. Colors are a fundamental component of our perceptual environment. They structure spaces, direct attention, facilitate orientation, alter the perception of proximity and distance, and shape the emotional atmosphere of a place.

Their effect is by no means created solely by individual shades of color. What is crucial is the complex interplay of color, brightness, contrast, materiality, light, the function of the space, and the context of use. The same color can have completely different effects in different spatial and social contexts.

Based on my many years of research and the latest work from the Institute for Evidence-Based Color Psychology, I will explain how color design can help to,

To reduce stress,
promote a sense of direction and security,
support concentration and performance,
facilitate recovery and rest,
strengthen communication and social participation,
and create health-promoting environments.

This makes color a key design factor in virtually all areas of interior design: for healthcare and long-term care facilities as well as for workplaces, educational spaces, residential buildings, public facilities, and the renovation of existing buildings.

Master Class: Designing Spaces for People – Translating Impact Goals

The masterclass “Designing Spaces for People—Translating Impact Goals” focuses on the practical application of scientific findings in planning practice.

Terms such as well-being, safety, engagement, comfort, and regeneration are frequently used in design processes. However, it is only once it has been clarified what these goals actually mean for a specific user group, activity, and spatial context that sound design decisions can be made.

Together, we explore how abstract requirements can be translated into clear spatial objectives. Building on this, we develop strategies for tailoring color, light, materials, contrast, spatial organization, and atmosphere specifically to the needs of future users.

Participants will gain insights into current research findings and explore a methodological approach that goes beyond personal preferences, conventional color symbolism, and general impact tables. The focus is on evidence-based, user-centered design, in which decisions are grounded in expertise, communicated within the project, and evaluated in terms of their intended impact.

A Necessary Shift in Perspective in Interior Design

The 2026 Interior Design Summit takes place at a crucial turning point for the discipline. In light of growing mental health challenges, an aging society, new ways of working and learning, and increasing demands on care, prevention, and inclusion, the health impact of interior spaces can no longer be treated as a secondary consideration.

Interior design bears responsibility for people’s living conditions. It can exacerbate stress—or counteract it. It can make it harder to find one’s way—or instill a sense of security. It can exclude people—or enable their participation. It can create institutional coldness—or create spaces where dignity, self-determination, and human connection can be experienced.

This is one of the key challenges facing our profession in the future: not to pit aesthetic quality against health benefits, but to view them as inseparable components of good design.

I look forward to professional exchanges with interior designers, planners, researchers, and everyone who not only designs spaces but also seeks to understand their impact on people and use them responsibly.

Interior Design Summit 2026
Aesthetics & Health – How Interior Design Influences Our Well-Being

November 13–15, 2026
AXICA Congress and Conference Center
in the DZ BANK building
Pariser Platz 3, Berlin

Friday, November 13, 2026

Masterclass:
Designing Spaces for People – Translating Impact Goals

Keynote: “
: Color as a Factor in Health“

Link to register with the organizer bdia

Workshop

Color is not merely a visual phenomenon. It has weight, temperature, and texture—it is tactile, even though we can only see it. Its effect arises from the interplay of material, surface, and light.

This seminar combines evidence-based color psychology with the practice of architecture and interior design—in collaboration with the JAB Anstoetz Group, one of the world’s leading textile companies.

With over 1,000 real material samples, a space for experience opens up that goes far beyond color charts and digital representations: Color can be experienced as a living phenomenon that manifests itself differently in each material and reveals its psychological qualities.

1. May 21, 2026 JAB ANSTOETZ Group | Munich Showroom
2. September 22, 2026 JAB ANSTOETZ Group | Hamburg Showroom
3. September 24, 2026 JAB ANSTOETZ Group | Berlin Showroom

Register with the organizer via this link: JAB Anstoetz Group

What to Expect

Presentation (90 minutes)
Current Insights into Color Psychology—From Perception to Impact:

• The Influence of Color on Well-Being, Motivation, and Cognitive Processes
• The Importance of Material, Light, and Context
• scientific principles from the fields of perceptual psychology, environmental psychology, and neuroaesthetics

Workshop (90 minutes) “
: Thinking About and Experiencing Color in Materials”:

• Experimental work with a wide range of textile surfaces
• Analysis of the Interactions Between Color, Texture, and Light
• Development of targeted material-color combinations for different intended effects (e.g., calming, energizing, focusing)

For whom

Architects, interior designers, planners, and anyone who not only wants to design spaces but also wants to precisely understand their impact on people and develop that impact in a targeted way.

Your added value

• A scientifically grounded understanding of the effect of color in a room
• Enhanced design precision in the use of materials and surfaces
• Concrete ideas for spaces that promote well-being, orientation, and performance

A seminar at the intersection of research, sensor technology, and design

Colors are among the strongest and fastest brand signals. They shape trust, identification, orientation and purchasing decisions. Nevertheless, color decisions in many companies and by creatives are not made strategically, but often out of habit or taste.

This leads to:

• weak recognizability
• Inconsistencies across touchpoints
• higher costs in design & communication
• Missed opportunities for customer acquisition and retention
• wasted brand power

This intensive seminar teaches how color shapes brand perception and buying behavior and how companies can use color strategically, systematically and evidence-based. The seminar provides orientation, imparts knowledge and enables decision-making for the more effective use of color in brand communication, product design and sales.

Learning objectives

You learn concretely

• How color influences trust, brand personality and buying behavior
• how color impulses become brand codes and how they work
• how psychological color impact can be measured at touchpoints
• how to recognize inconsistencies and risks
• how strategic color systems are developed and successfully implemented

Target group

Responsible persons from

• Corporate management
• Marketing, Brand, Communication
• Distribution
• Product & Industrial Design
• Architecture & Interior Design
• Experience & Service Design
• Agencies & creatives
• Anyone who wants to use color strategically

Speakers

Prof. Dr. Axel Buether
Leading expert in evidence-based color psychology and strategic color design. As Professor of Visual Communication at the University of Wuppertal and Director of the Institute for Evidence-Based Color Psychology, he combines perceptual psychology, neuroscience and design. His work shows how color has a measurable effect on perception, behavior and well-being – and how this results in effective color strategies for brands, spaces and products.

Olaf G. Hartmann
Expert in evidence-based brand strategy, brand experience and multisensory brand coding. As founder of the Multisense Institute, he combines the latest findings from psychology and neuroscience with many years of consulting experience. His focus is on developing effective brand strategies that can be experienced consistently across all the senses and generate lasting brand loyalty. Listen in: Markenkraft – The podcast about brand management and brand research, Read in: Brand power through brand experience: design, measure, manage successfully.

Date

September 03, 2026 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. RAL AKADEMIE Bonn

Location

RAL AKADEMIE
Fränkische Straße 7
53229 Bonn

More information about the program and registration on the website of the organizer RAL AKADEMIE

Anyone who has ever sat in a concert hall knows the feeling: even before the first note is played, a certain atmosphere takes hold. The space feels solemn, warm, mysterious, or cool. We’re expecting something—and it’s precisely this expectation that shapes how we hear the music.

A recent study by the Technical University of Berlin impressively demonstrates just how strongly colors influence our perception of sound. The researchers, led by acoustics expert Stefan Weinzierl, placed test subjects in a virtual concert hall. There, they listened repeatedly to exactly the same pieces of music—played on the violin or clarinet. Physically, the sound remained identical.

The only change was the color of the concert hall.

The result was clear:

• When presented in intense, highly saturated colors—especially red— the sound was more often perceived as unpleasant.
• In darker, less saturated color spaces, the participants described the sound as warmer, more pleasant, and more harmonious.

The music stayed the same—but the experience changed.

Our senses work as a team

Research confirms a fundamental principle of the psychology of perception: Our senses do not function in isolation.

What we hear is always influenced by what we see, feel, smell, or expect. In science, this is referred to as multisensory perception or cross-modality.

The brain continuously integrates information from various sensory channels in order to assess a situation as quickly and reliably as possible. Neuroscientific studies show that visual, auditory, and other sensory impressions are linked together even in early stages of processing—for example, in the thalamus and in multisensory cortical areas.

Our brain uses this information to form a kind of prediction about the world. This expectation, in turn, influences how we interpret stimuli.

A well-known example from perception research:
When a beverage is colored a deeper red, people often perceive it as sweeter—even if the taste hasn’t changed at all.

Expectations Shape Perception

We see this effect all the time in our daily lives, too.

An experiment involving movers illustrates this point:
When they carried dark shipping crates, they felt exhausted more quickly than when carrying light-colored crates —even though the weight was identical. Visual expectations thus influenced their physical perception.

It works similarly when listening to music. Colors, lighting, and interior design create expectations about,

• how intense a sound will be
• how warm or cool it appears
• how emotionally we experience it

If a room appears visually “loud”—for example, due to highly saturated colors—our brain expects a different acoustic character than in calm, muted color schemes.

Why Traditional Concert Halls Are Often Designed to Be Dark and Warm

Historically, the color schemes of many concert halls are no coincidence.

Dark colors, red velvet fabrics, gold accents, and subdued lighting serve several psychological functions:

1. Focusing Attention
Dark rooms reduce visual distractions. The audience focuses its attention more intently on the stage and the sound.

2. Setting the Emotional Mood
Warm colors such as red or gold create a festive, intimate atmosphere—an emotional backdrop for the musical experience.

3. Heightened Perception
As darkness falls, our sensory attention turns more inward. Many people listen to music more intently at that time.

These principles are also deliberately incorporated into modern concert formats.

Pop and Rock Concerts: When Color Enhances Sound

While traditional concert halls often feature calm, dark colors, pop and rock productions deliberately use the opposite.

Large-scale stage shows with dynamic lighting effects create strong emotional anticipation:

• Red light amplifies energy and tension
• Blue light creates an atmospheric, expansive effect
• Shifting color schemes synchronize visual and auditory highlights

The audience “hears” the music more intensely because their visual system is already primed for emotional arousal.

Architecture of the Future: Acoustics Starts with Sight

The findings of the Berlin study have practical implications.

In the design of concert halls, tremendous attention is traditionally paid to physical acoustics —room volume, reflections, and materials.

But research shows:
Colors, light, and the aesthetics of materials are also part of acoustics.

They influence,

• how warm a sound is perceived to be
• how clear or diffuse it appears
• how emotionally impactful a musical experience is

Architecture, lighting design, and color schemes are therefore increasingly becoming part of a holistic sound experience.

Conclusion: We hear with our eyes

Music isn’t just created in the ear. It’s created in the brain—and that’s where all sensory impressions merge into a single experience.

Colors shape expectations.
Expectations change perception.
And perception determines how music moves us.

So maybe it’s worth arriving at the concert hall a little earlier next time—and just taking a moment to let the colors of the room sink in.

Because even before the music starts, it has often already begun.

My radio interview on this topic on Bayerischer Rundfunk (March 15, 2026, 12:58 p.m.)

Axel Buether, Color Researcher

Nothing is more exciting than a fulfilling life. In GESPRÄCH, people talk about what moves them and what they want to make a difference in, what interests them, and what they’re passionate about. Fame doesn’t matter. It’s about the person and their story: Every single one is fascinating—and you can only hear them here.

Colors influence concentration, well-being, and even the healing process. This is demonstrated by studies conducted by Prof. Dr. Axel Buether of the University of Wuppertal. Thanks to his color schemes for hospitals, people there are happier: staff members take fewer sick days, and patients require fewer sedatives.

Axel Buether has repeatedly broken new ground: He began his career as a stonemason, later worked as an architect, and designed a highly acclaimed multimedia pavilion for EXPO 2000 in Hanover. Today, he designs cancer wards, schools, and prisons in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, and conducts research on color psychology.

Vera Kröning-Menzel spoke with him about the power of colors. First broadcast on RBB Radio 3 on March 1, 2026.

You can listen to the interview as a podcast in the ARD media library.

A sneak peek ahead of the opening of the Anne Truitt exhibition at K20 Düsseldorf with color researcher and color psychologist Axel Buether, exclusively for young adults, March 27, 2026, from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Anyone who engages with Anne Truitt’s sculptures encounters a richness of color that extends far beyond the appearance of a surface. Her colors take on a presence reminiscent of the sedimentary layers of lived experience. Each layer carries within it memory, perception, and mood. In the studio, this effect was achieved through the patient, repeated layering of pigment and binder until a harmony of color emerged that connects space, form, and atmosphere.

The expressive power of these works unfolds above all in the nuances of their colors. Saturation and opacity, warm and cool tones, and the relationship of one hue to its neighbor or to the surrounding light determine the emotional resonance of the work. A slightly muted pink can create a delicate, almost ethereal atmosphere. A blue modulated with gray evokes a quiet depth. A muted yellow carries warmth and memory without dominating the space. Much of the psychological impact of Truitt’s color palette lies in these subtle gradations.

This sensitivity to nuances of color reveals a clear affinity with American Color Field painting. Artists such as Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Ad Reinhardt developed a style of painting in which color serves as a vehicle for existential experience. Their large-scale pictorial spaces appear as atmospheric fields in which emotion, memory, and perception coalesce.

Anne Truitt consistently extends this line of thought into the space. Her vertical sculptures appear as upright fields of color that physically engage the viewer. The color forms both an atmospheric skin of the work and a field in which perception unfolds. The viewer moves around these chromatic harmonies, experiences transitions between nuances, and discovers subtle shifts in tone, saturation, and the play of light.

In this spatial presence, Truitt’s colors take on a special psychological quality. They appear like entries in a silent diary. Life stages, memories, and emotional experiences coalesce into tonal harmonies whose impact stems less from symbolic meaning than from the sensitive interplay of nuances. Color thus becomes a medium for self-affirmation and the expansion of artistic expression.

It is precisely this ability to make the subtlest differences in color perceptible that gives Anne Truitt’s work its lasting impact. Her sculptures invite us to experience color as a living space of experience: as atmospheric energy, as an echo of memory, and as a quiet force that deepens our perception and fills space with meaning.

Sneak Peek: Preview for young adults. Fri, Mar. 27, 4:00–5:30 p.m. Anne Truitt; for more information, visit the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen website

Color makes an impact. So do spaces.
The MÜNCHNER STOFF FRÜHLING —and a special design talk on the role of color in interior design.

When Munich transforms into a gathering place for interior decorators, interior designers, and furniture specialists in March, it’s about much more than just trends and materials. More than 130 national and international brands will showcase high-quality home textiles, wallpapers, carpets, color palettes, and upholstered furniture—serving as the foundation for design concepts ranging from classic to experimental.

Color is not just a minor detail.
It influences orientation, atmosphere, behavior, and well-being. Color psychologist Axel Buether explains why color is one of the most effective tools in architecture, interior design, and textiles—and why spaces are never neutral.

Drawing on his many years of research, Buether explains in a clear and practical way how colors affect emotions and social interaction. Using concrete examples from healthcare facilities, workplaces, and public spaces, he highlights the responsibility that comes with color design—especially in the interplay of light, materials, and textiles.

His guiding principle sums it up:
“Color is not just a pretty facade, but a sensory medium that connects us to the world.”

Live at the Design Talk at the MÜNCHNER STOFF FRÜHLING

Thursday, March 12 · starting at 6:30 p.m.
Occhio Experience Center, Lenbachplatz 3, Munich
No registration required – first come, first served

An evening for everyone who wants not only to design spaces but also to understand them.