48 | Oregon Home GREEN HOWELLS ARCHITECTURE howellsarc.com When Michael Howells was a kid growing up in the United Kingdom three decades ago, there weren’t any all-white kitchens and baths. “I never liked it and still don’t,” says the Portland architect and designer. “I call it ‘drained of color,’” Howells says. “It’s such a missed opportunity. In the art that I love—Howard Hodgkin, Joan Mitchell, Kimber Smith—color is everything.” Howells recently applied his painterly approach to color to the kitchen of a 1923 bungalow in the Overlook neighborhood. He considered the question of color early in the project, conceived for a landscape designer and nature lover. Howells always takes a two-pronged approach to finding the right hue: working with the native architecture of the house and feeling out what the clients might respond to. Here, he thought a lot about woodsy, cozy homes and cabins, deciding on Benjamin Moore “Balsam,” what he calls a bold, “British Racing” version of green that would give good contrast to the natural-wood elements. “It’s much darker than I would normally recommend,” Howells says. “The bright crisp green really works well with the darker-wood elements—it gives it a little kick of modernity but plays well with tradition.” Color should never be arbitrary, Howells says. The architect does ample detective work once he’s gotten to know his clients and presents limited options when he has found a few great choices. Color or not? That’s never a question for Howells, who is known for his considered approach to the rainbow. “I think something has got to hold some color,” Howells says. “The Pacific Northwest reliably offers us gray outside—inside, we get to choose!”
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