The Lightness of the Elephant

A Story About the Colors of Small and Large Shapes

Residents of the apartment building collaborated with the design and craft collective KunstRaum Goethestrasse xtd to create freehand drawings using watercolors, brushes, and colored pencils. Animals, people, and plants emerged. Landscapes and memories took center stage on the paper.

From the wealth of resulting artwork, a design concept was developed that used shapes, colors, and forms, as well as transparency and vibrancy, as guiding principles to tell stories about the lightness of elephants and much more.

On the walls in front of the entrances to the individual rooms, color and shapes provide orientation for the residents. Each wall features a motif depicting animals, and the color scheme is based on four primary colors: yellow, red, blue, and green. These colors are repeated in the hallways and the adjoining rooms. The basic motifs of the wallpaper patterns on the walls in the common areas were, in turn, drawings created during the residents’ shared afternoons.