(1) --- from Derek Roff <[log in to unmask]> There are many factors to consider. One is energy efficiency. White paint can reflect twice the amount of light of the mid-tone values for interior shades of blue, green, red or intermediate hues. Therefore, lighting a room that is painted, for example, a medium blue, will cost substantially more in electricity than lighting the same room when painted white. Assuming that the lighting is designed or adjusted to produce identical amounts of usable light for the people utilizing the room. Another factor is maintenance and reparability. Lighter colors need to be cleaned more often, to avoid looking dingy. On the other hand, deeper colors tend to fade, so repainting chips and gouges may present color matching problems. Color has emotional impact that varies from person to person. It also affects our perception of temperature. People are more likely to think a red or orange room is too hot, or that a blue room is too cold, even if the actual room temperature is identical. Many people find white to be boring, sterile or clinical. My preference is to paint with a bright white, and then to bring in lots of color accents with photographs, graphics, and colored panels or painted shapes. In this scenario, the room can be "updated" and changed just by changing the pictures and rearranging the colored elements. I like to display large, engaging photographs of other cultures and countries, and this is most effective/flexible on white walls. I like the fact that I can freshen a room with a few hours of rearranging decorative elements, rather than waiting for the fairly long periods between full room repainting. However, my building coordinator likes painting various walls in various strong and fairly deep colors. I find many of the chosen colors to be hard to live with. We've generally ended up with a compromise in the labs, with one wall painted a strong color, and the other walls white. Having good control over the lighting, with a wide range of possible adjustments, is a major plus, regardless of the colors chosen. Since your video viewing rooms are windowless, I would stay with white paint plus accent colors for those, too. It should be easy to get the rooms dark enough just by turning down/off the lights. Derek (2) --- from Lucinda Miller <[log in to unmask]> Sharon, I know I've heard that screening rooms are supposed to be dark. But my personal opinion, as someone who works in a suite of windowless rooms, is that the small rooms should be as light as possible. Presumably the students will be there only while they're editing their videos, but I've had people get claustrophobic in the recording booth, which is a 10' by 10' room with a big window. It was a dark gray color when we got it, and everybody hated it so much that we had to paint it immediately. Lighter seems less closed in. Lucinda -- Lucinda Miller, language materials coordinator Center for Language Technology and Instructional Enrichment Indiana University Ballantine Hall room 114 1020 E. Kirkwood Bloomington, IN 47405-7103 (812) 855-0005; fax: (812) 855-5656 (3) --- from "Roosa, Kathy" <[log in to unmask]> Sharon, I know I've heard that screening rooms are supposed to be dark. But my personal opinion, as someone who works in a suite of windowless rooms, is that the small rooms should be as light as possible. Presumably the students will be there only while they're editing their videos, but I've had people get claustrophobic in the recording booth, which is a 10' by 10' room with a big window. It was a dark gray color when we got it, and everybody hated it so much that we had to paint it immediately. Lighter seems less closed in. Lucinda -- Lucinda Miller, language materials coordinator Center for Language Technology and Instructional Enrichment Indiana University Ballantine Hall room 114 1020 E. Kirkwood Bloomington, IN 47405-7103 (812) 855-0005; fax: (812) 855-5656 (4) --- from [log in to unmask] Sharon, Not sure about what colors you should choose, but I would be sure to let the architects and Facilities know well in advance that for both areas you want to have lighting in the warm spectrum, rather than the cool fluorescent. I don't know what choices there are these days (maybe there are no longer any warmer choices), but they should be told to find the warmest lighting they can, especially for the collaborative area -- and have them (or do yourself) lay in a supply of replacement bulbs. Nothing worse than mixed spectrum lighting (some cool and some warm) in a room because there are no more of the original warmer bulbs left. In any case, I would avoid any of the cool green shades for the paint in both rooms. If you do end up having cool lighting it makes everything in the green shade range look so garish. (It makes everyone in the lab look like this: *http://tinyurl.com/63vzk5 )* Best, Ed Dente "Canaries in the morning, orchestras In the afternoon, balloons at night..." - Wallace Stevens <<Academic Discourse at Havana>> *********************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) ***********************************************