Colour invasion bringing smiles and tears

There's a zesty new trend emerging, and it's trying to change your mood.

I, like a couple of thousand other Londoners, wander across Jubilee Bridge on my way home from work each day, enjoying the view of London sprawled along the Thames. The scene is uplifting, but it’s undeniably grey. Except, that is, for the bright yellow staircase of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on southbank. There’s something about dazzling and unexpected colour that makes me smile – and apparently I’m not alone.

Italian architect Renzo Piano recently shocked London by unveiling what he felt was the perfect coating for the new sustainable offices at Central Saint Giles (pictured). It’s an effort to show that sustainability isn’t just about what a building does (or, in terms of carbon footprint, what it doesn’t do); it can also be about how it does it. The zesty orange, yellow and green shine out in an effort to create a “joyful heart” in the city and “make a positive contribution to this part of the West End”.

It’s not just London that’s getting a colourful makeover. In March, Dulux launched a new chapter in its green agenda, with an international outreach project to help us “live our lives in colour”. The idea is to equip enthusiastic community volunteers with brushes and cans of paint to splash more colour into the world. So far they’ve colourfied communities as far apart as Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Jodhpur in India. This week they’re in Istanbul.

Not everyone’s a fan of this colour invasion. The Guardian recently suggested that looking at Central Saint Giles, you’d be forgiven for thinking that giant mutant radioactive chewy sweets had invaded the world. Perhaps that’s a little extreme. At least we know that if the good weather doesn’t last, we have something else to dazzle us this summer.