CRSC AGM Keynote 2026: The Significance of Abstraction w/ Fiona McLachlan

Architects and designers use abstracted sketches, plans, diagrams and models as a means to clarify conceptual thinking. Although sophisticated computer renders are now customary– seeking realism in representation– digital colour can be frustratingly variable and unreliable. Analogue hand drawings and physical models remain useful and tangible, although hand-painting in contemporary practice is less common. As a research method, and in teaching colour design for architecture, painting can embed colour directly within the process of enquiry and maintain a degree of abstraction. Drawing on an ongoing renovation project with Collective Architecture, Professor Fiona McLachlan, University of Edinburgh, Scotland will discuss the development of a colour strategy for two, Category A listed, brutalist housing blocks from the 1960s in Edinburgh and the role of abstract paintings as a tool for discussion, consultation and collaborative practice. Biography: Fiona McLachlan is Professor of Architectural Practice at the University of Edinburgh. She teaches architectural design and colour design for architecture and is a past Head of the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA). Her practice– E & F McLachlan Architects– specialized in social housing and residential projects over a thirty-year period and has been included in international exhibitions and publications. She is the author of three books: Architectural Colour in the Professional Palette, (Routledge, 2012), which was stimulated by her work in practice, Colour Strategies in Architecture, (Schwabe Verlag, 2015) co-authored with Haus der Farbe, Zurich and Colour Beyond the Surface: Art in Architecture (Lund Humphries, 2022).