Millennial pink. In the past couple of years the colour is reported to have taken the design and fashion worlds by storm, yet it is slippery to define.
Said to have evolved from a pedigree of rose gold iPhones, Pantone’s Rose Quartz and a millennial desire to challenge gender norms, this non-girly, buff shade of pink is also increasingly found in the public domain.
Here’s our top 8 picks of times the colour has hit parks and streets, with Instagramable results.
Top photo: Juan Benavides.
1. A Room
Brick on the outside, tender pink on the inside, this triangular installation by Salottobuono + Enrico Dusi Architecture encourages play in the heart of Mexico City.
It includes a trending motif: cactuses on a pink background (see hashtag #PlantsOnPink).
Photo: Moritz Bernoully.
2. La Muralla Roja
Spanish for ‘The Red Wall,’ La Muralla Roja is a housing project in the La Manzanera development in Spain’s Calpe, designed by architect Ricardo Bofill.
Formed like a fortress with interlocking stairs, platforms and bridges, with a palette of rich and pastel candy colours, the space is popular with artists, tourists and designers – but its success as a living space is difficult to gauge from the empty images.
Photo: Ricardo Bofill.
3. Pink Pineapple Pavilion
Studio Morison’s bright pink pavilion, called Look! Look! Look!, currently graces an 18th century garden at Berrington Hall, a National Trust-designated historic country house in Herefordshire, England.
Local artists Heather and Ivan Morison created the open structure as a contemporary reinterpretation of traditional landscape ‘eyecatchers.’ It was commissioned to kick of fundraising for restoration and to attract visitors to the site.
Photo: National Trust UK.
4. André Malraux Schools
Millennial pink is seen throughout the school complex, designed by Dominique Coulon & Associés to hold a nursery, before and after school care, and a primary school campus.
The school is set on a triangular plot in Montpellier, southern France.
Photo: Eugeni Pons.
5. Cuadra San Cristóbal
A classic. Commissioned by the Swedish businessman Folke Egerstrom and built between 1966 and 1968, the equestrian estate was designed by celebrated Mexican architect Luis Barragán.
The environment plays with flat planes, saturated colors, falling water, light and shadow.
Photo: Steve Silverman, Flickr.
6. Pink Flamingo
On the east side of Paris, this student apartment block is perched over train tracks, with vertical columns rising up like flamingo’s legs in the mind of designer Stephane Maupin.
The project is installed above big concrete slabs over trains in motion, with 27 small spring boxes connecting the ground floor. The boxes stop vibrations from carrying up to the apartments.
Photo: Guillaume Clément.
7. LightPathAKL
A 600m cycleway in inner-city Auckland, New Zealand, by Monk Mackenzie Architects and Landlab that includes pink path and interactive lighting.
More than 100,000 cycle journeys have been recorded across its pink runway. While not technically millennial pink, we salute its bold fuschia hue.
Photo: Russ Flatt.
8. Cherry Blossom
Found in several countries around the world, cherry blossom is an excellent space activator, bringing thousands of tourists to Japan each year. Trendsetter nature sometimes does it first, and best.
Photo: Oris5650, Flickr.
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