4.3. Materials And Colours
- Common wall materials on Newport and Ryde shopfronts include red brick, yellow brick and stucco or render.
- Common ornamentation materials on Newport and Ryde shopfronts include joinery, stone and ceramic tiles.
- Leaded transom lights are commonly found in both towns, especially on art deco buildings.
- To ensure good quality, long-lasting construction of new shopfronts, solid timber panels should be used where possible and budget plywood avoided. Where the use of plywood is unavoidable, high quality marine ply is preferred and should be strictly treated according to manufacturer recommendations.
- Shopfronts should not contain too many different materials but should use two or three (for example: stone, glass and metal trim, or glass, timber and tile).
- Non-traditional sand, lime or cement renders should not be used in historic buildings (i.e. those built before the common introduction of these materials in the period after World War I). The predominant element of a shopfront is the glazing. However, excessive use of glazing should be avoided. Modern shopfront design trends have tended to neglect stallrisers and transom lights in favour of floor to ceiling glazing. To maintain traditional proportions of new shopfronts and to add a finer texture to the appearance of new shopfronts, both stallrisers and transom lights are recommended and preferred.
- Another consideration for designers is the potential difficulty of supply of large and curved panes of glass to the Isle of Wight, another reason to opt for smaller rather than larger panes. Shopfront colours should be compatible with the existing building and surroundings. Traditional shopfront colours used on the Isle of Wight are pastels and dark muted colours. These are ‘recessive’ and don’t over-dominate the view allowing the shopfront to be seen with the building and wider streetscene, but also provding a strong frame to the shop window (and display) without detracting from it. These should normally be used.
Example of a suitable colour choice from Newport and Ryde
Example of a suitable colour choice from Newport and Ryde
Example of a suitable colour choice from Newport and Ryde
Recommended colour palette showing muted colours.
