After a few trips to the West Coast, Richard Davis found that color is the latest thing in the design of townhouses and condominiums there.  In turn, he convinced his client, James Stovall, that color on his 4-unit townhouse project in Oak Cliff would be a hot feature in demand by buyers.

“Bright colors are coming to residential projects in Dallas,” says Davis, as shown in this rendering of RDDA’s design for Stovall.

The onslaught of color on the Dallas skyline began several years ago and continues to grow as new buildings go up and older buildings decide it’s time for a makeover, adding neon highlights to their silhouettes.  In fact, in the past few years, colorful neon has become the signature image of the city.

Yet an influx of color has yet to reach residential construction in Dallas.
Richard Davis predicts that this lack of color is about to change.

Here are a few photos from his trip to Seattle, where he was struck by the use of color on multi-family projects.

In a city where rain dominates, the bold use of color adds brightness to the streetscape–even when the sun isn’t shining (which is more often than not.)

Similar use of color is appearing in Los Angeles, as well.

Richard Davis is excited about the opportunities to add color to residential designs in Dallas.  He sees it as an opportunity for clients who want a contemporary house, but not merely an austere white box.  For the less adventurous, who may not want too much color, the use of a more vibrant color as a highlight could be combined with parts of the building in conservative colors, such as white, grey, tan, or black.  This strategy would temper the overall effect, while still adding interest and vitality to the design.

The RDDA-designed townhouses are near the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff.  After seeing the influx of color on the West Coast, Richard believes the addition of some color to the façade would be appropriate for this project, especially since Oak Cliff is known as a progressive and artsy part of the city.

Here is a rendering of the project without color on the façade.

Here is the same project with color added.
It’s not as brazen as some of the color seen on the West Coast, but we think it is a great addition.

RDDA looks forward to leading the charge to introduce the innovative use of color to multi-family and residential projects across Dallas.

To see more images of projects designed by RDDA, please visit our website.