Patricia Bustos Studio is an interior design Studio based in Madrid, Spain, founded in 2015 by its founder. The studio works on interior design projects for private homes, hotels, restaurants, offices and shops. The studio was founded with a very clear mission to create something unique and innovative, always adding value to its design based on creativity and beauty. It publishes its projects in the most prestigious interior design magazines and garnered the Casa Decor 2018 awards for the “Best Space” and for the “Most Photographed Space”. The studio’s aesthetic propositions are always thrilling, bright and cutting edge; inspired by the past but also forward looking. The Milanese avant-garde, mid-century modern, the crazy 60s and Sottsass' Memphis style are just some of the aesthetic benchmarks alluded to in its projects. A colouristic hallmark and an unmistakeable, sophisticated, fresh, feminine feel are this firm's calling card.

In the Master Class, Patricia Bustos gives a comprehensive teaching of color. The three-day-class successively contains The Theory of Color, The History, Psychology and Philosophy of Color. Patricia Bustos leads us into the vivid colorful world. She introduces professional theories and also shows the real effect with the help of studio’s projects. In her view, color is a significant part of interior design. By applying and combining it, we could produce various ambience for the space. It is not only a visual experience, but an emotional feeling. With different color, we express devise meanings and emotions. The color theory helps us to locate the colors fitting the space and how to match them; knowing the history behind it enables us to feel deeply its sense and cultural value; observing the practical use is to know how color affects the architecture. 

Day 1 Course Description：

Color is the essence of life. On the first day of class, Patricia Bustos introduced you to the concept of color and then moved on to the theory of color. Through a simple introduction to color, so that we can see the infinite dimension and multi-faceted color. She also talks about scientists involved with color and the different color theories and rules they have developed. In her view, color cannot be regarded as absolute. Color has a relative nature, certain factors will affect and enhance color, to understand their rules to understand their language and image composition.

Yinjispace：Could you explain the additive synthesis and subtractive synthesis? 

Patricia Bustos：Here are two pictures. In one picture, when you mix colors, the color here refers to the color of light, which is the light of different colors. When you mix colors, the more colors you mix, the lighter the color of the mixture. Therefore, after mixing all colors, you get white, which is called additive synthesis. Because you add light when you mix, the more you add, the brighter the lighting. However, in subtractive synthesis, more color mixing causes the mixture to darken until it becomes black. The darker the color, the weaker the light. So although you increase the color, you reduce the lighting. Let's take a look. Throughout history, different scientists have tried to find out the primary colors, including the primary colors of light and matter, to find out which colors produce all other colors. 

So in subtractive synthesis, the primary colors are cyan, magenta and yellow, because they have more possibilities, although at the research level we use another light wheel. On the practical level, we use magenta, cyan and yellow among the pigments in the mixture. Red, yellow and blue are actually secondary colors. As you mix colors, they get darker and darker until they become black. When you mix light, such as red and green, the mixture is yellow, and yellow is lighter and brighter than red and green, that is, the color is lighter and lighter until it becomes white. This is an important knowledge in this field.

Yinjispace：How to recollect immediately the adjacent colors and complementary colors?

Patricia Bustos：There is one page: the official page of Pantone. You can find colors, adjacent colors, complementary colors, and their reference values. But what I really recommend is this light wheel. In this light wheel, you can find equilateral triangle colors, you can see complementary colors, you can try quadrilateral colors, you can rotate it to find the color you want. Then on the back, there are holes in the wheel. With this, you can find color harmony. You can also use Photoshop to mix pure red, pure blue and other solid colors, and you get the mixed color. Our interior design company will use these color cards in our work, which are all different colors. There is no complementary color, tri color combination, or four-color combination, but you can choose the color you like, and contrast saturation, hue, and other factors with it. Then use this tool to supplement, so that you can see where the complementary colors are.

Day 2 Course Description：

In the second day of class, Patricia Bustos talked about the history, psychology and philosophy of color. She began the course with an introduction to the development of color in history, and also covered the various meanings and symbols that color has. Patricia Bustos illustrates the influence and function of color in social context through some examples of color use in different cities. She believes that colors help to enhance the expressive power of information, and that different colors show different emotions and atmospheres.

Yinjispace：Could you explain the contrast between single color and materials or mixed colors and materials?

Patricia Bustos：I have some different materials here. They are all the same color. I can show you. This is a piece of ceramics. These are velvet, with very saturated green. This is wool yarn and ceramics. This is the material used by Gaudi we saw before, as well as green ceramics and glass mosaics. This is a kind of material called terrazzo, which is also a kind of recycled material and is often integrated in micro cement. This is a kind of green Sahara marble, how beautiful it looks. When you have a very polished surface, you can combine it with this rougher, matt material. Because it is warm velvet, the color is the same as another smooth material, but the contrast is very bright. With the same tone, one is smooth and eye-catching, and the other is textured and matt. The contrast is very nice. These two are polished materials, which are not so beautiful when compared together. The contrast effect between polished and matte is very good. This is blown glass and some natural ores. I compare the ore with these textured matt materials, which is very beautiful. I often use a basic tone when designing, and then choose slightly different colors to create color harmony. Then I mixed the materials I just showed you, matte and polished together, rough and smooth together.

Yinjispace：Are the material plates grouped by colors?

Patricia Bustos：When I start a project, I can make some color boxes, which can stimulate my inspiration. This is the technique I will adopt when I want to make a monochrome space. This is the material of my kitchen, where there are natural elements, such as stone; There are rougher elements, such as the striped material, which is in contrast to the shiny material; This is a raw material, brass; This is a kind of handmade ceramic tile with a sense of flaw, and glass has no such sense of flaw; This kind of mosaic material is bright, but this kind of fabric is more frosty.

Yinjispace：How to develop the sensitivity of color matching?

Patricia Bustos：In addition to practical exercises, the best way to gain more creativity and sensitivity to color is to train your eyes a lot and see a lot of things. So what we are doing now is to see how others use color and explain color, which will be of great help to us. First of all, it gives us the motivation to continue our study and research and to see many other architects. Because there are not only those who I have mentioned, but also many architects. Let's see how they use color. We will see the information of James Darrell and Dan Fravin. They are two other artists who will also make very special colors. I think it is very enlightening. After doing these exercises, we can choose the palette. We now know what harmony is, what contrast is, how to find harmonious color combinations, what complementary colors are, and so on. Later, when we started to make color palettes, I think the color will be more detailed. Usually we will use intuition to choose and judge at the beginning, but it is different after color knowledge training.

Day 3 Course Description：

In the third day of the class, Patricia Bustos delves into the analysis of color by introducing several color artists. After that, she analyzed some of her studio's projects and came up with some practical tips for interior design. She believes that the artist's use of color is more instinctive, a heartfelt expression of emotion, rather than a formal consideration. In their works, color temporarily lost its concrete form and became a carrier of more transcendent concepts. In her interpretation of the project, Patricia Bustos shows the influence of color on space and the atmosphere it shapes. Through theory and practice, we can find a harmonious and orderly color space.

Yinjispace：The nature lighting condition is good in your projects. Has it been considered in the construction stage?

Patricia Bustos：Like others, I have been learning this knowledge for many years. At the beginning, I didn't know how to set the lighting. Through trial and error, I was able to set the lighting better. But in the last few years of my career, lighting is the most basic thing in my project. Because I know that, like color, lighting has a great impact on the feeling of people living in that house, so lighting must be planned in advance. If it is natural lighting, we can see that all spaces have enough light. This is because we always try to distribute things above the natural light, and then determine where the natural light is most needed. Conversely, for example, the bedroom or bathroom is where the natural light is less needed. Of course, it is better if every room has enough natural light, but it depends on the specific project. When we don't have much natural light, we should find ways to improve. If the natural light is insufficient, we will use lighting to compensate, which is certain. I know many people don't know how to light. They think it would be better to install a lamp on the ceiling. But in fact, there are many ways to get lighting, not just to put the spotlight on the ceiling.

Yinjispace：Could you explain the reflection and refraction of light in the surface of materials? Could you recommend some related softwares?

Patricia Bustos：The method of enhancing texture and color through light should first consider the intensity and color of light and their relationship with the color of walls. This is a bit like the work concept of these artists we mentioned, such as James Terrell, who designed the sky observation platform. He considered the color of the light, how it fell, and then the color he wanted to use. So we should not only consider the light, its color and its power, but also the texture of the materials around the light, and then the reflection. When using colored transparent materials, the most effective way is to constantly change the plane of these transparent materials. If you change the plane and angle of these transparent materials, you will always get more impressive results than if you put them on the same plane. In the image I have shown you, those houses with mirrors and colors are on different planes. The windows placed on the wall make the light enter and be reflected, which is also slightly inclined. As the light disappears and the sun goes down, it changes its angle and the reflection angle of the light also changes. Therefore, the reflected light will change greatly with the course of the day. 

If you use color or transparency to deal with a single plane, of course, you can do the same, but the effect you get will always be less dynamic. This is why Daniel Bullen changed the plane in the color and transparency devices he made. Because when the sun goes down, the light effect produced in this way is much more interesting than a single wall. When I saw Bren making wall lamps, furniture and various designs, I realized that his plane had more diagonal lines and more changes, so the reflection effect was always more interesting. The same is true of the theme of the mirror. You have to try, because you don't know what will happen without trying. Because usually, the reflection of the mirror is about 120 degrees to 90 degrees. You must take the mirror to that place and see what happens. Put it on the wall to see the effect. Take a mirror everywhere to see what will happen. You always have to do a test. Then, as for the texture, the light beam should always be placed near the texture. Of course, this is the case of artificial lighting. We have already said about the natural light. You can see the texture more clearly under the bright light. When the texture is closer to us, you can see more clearly, and you can see less clearly in the dark light. But if we want to see a texture highlighted, we will have to add a direct illumination. However, the illumination is in the form of radial pattern , which is called radial light. When you use a radial light, the texture is always clearer. If you have a wall with texture on it, you can put the lighting on the ceiling or on the floor to form a radial light if you want to enhance the light. In this way, the texture will be highlighted. Sketchapp, 3max, these are 3D modeling applications that we can use. You can put mirrors, textures and lighting types into the program to test. There are some even more professional applications that you can use. But it is better to do the test at the design site. Some lighting companies are specialized in helping with the test.