24 Examples of Dithered, Halftone, and Other Illusion Patterns Used to Create Surface Gradients

Architects and designers are often looking for ways to make building facades and interior surfaces stand out from the crowd. But sometimes just the smallest change can have the biggest impact once you step back and see the whole picture. By employing an illusionary pattern such as dithering pixels or halftone dots, or by making subtle but intentional changes to the position or orientation of materials, flat surfaces can be transformed into curved, moving forms.

Halftone patterns work by reducing a solid surface of color into dots of decreasing size. As the dots gradually reduce to nothing, they leave nothing behind except a background color. The result is a flat surface with a gradient that mimics the shadows or highlights of a three-dimensional curve. Dithering, meanwhile, is the process of feathering multiple shades of the same color to blend them together. The effect allows designers to, on a large enough scale, create images with depth and curves, while using only a single color. Or even to create the illusion of an intermediary color.

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When applied to the surfaces and facades found in our architectural environments, halftone, dithering, and other techniques of visual illusion – including using the material’s absence or changing its shape, for example – architects can form surfaces that not only change in front of our eyes, but allow us to control the change, too, as we change the viewing angle. Here are some examples of projects that use these patterns and effects to create gradient surfaces.

When small-scale dithering gradients are viewed on a macro-scale, the transitions can be hard to define, with the blends seeming more seamless, the smaller the pixels get. In surfaces like the reception area of Uber’s Hong Kong office, by architects Bean Buro, a large pixelated dithering pattern helps the decor move from dark turquoise floor tiles to a light white ceiling. Using only one intermediate grey in between, the tiles blend together at the changeover.

On the District School’s entrance facade in Bergedorf, architects blrm Arkitekt*innen ‘let the colors adapt from a light sky blue into a pattern of green like a pixelation,’ as they explain, using a dithering technique to create a seamless blend using only four separate shades. Meanwhile, architects Moon Soon and Mooyuki experimented with an adaptable system, used to create varying patterns of transition for the South Korean Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai. With a stepped facade including 1,597 spinning cubes, each with ‘one digital and three color faces,’ as the architects explain, both simple and complex patterns of color can be created easily.

The Escinter Store’s metal facade in São Paolo is perforated with a repeated pattern of the company logo to control the light coming into the interior. By gradually stopping the perforations by the entrance, however, the facade is subtly changed from black to dark grey. At the Aria Residential Building in Tehran, Iran, meanwhile, Pargar Architecture and Design Studio opted for a grid pattern of concrete brick tiles for its double-skin facade. The exposed spaces in between the grid are gradually filled with more tiles, forming a gradient wave which is also used to control the light entering the apartments’ living areas.

The halftone pattern is a simple, parametric method of blending two contrasting colors in a soft and subtle gradient. With opaque etching, for example, the Zhou Yao Insect Museum drips white over its glass facade like a snow-tipped mountain range, before it gradually ‘melts’ away close to the building’s ground floor. Alternatively, the Shinhan EX:PACE building facade uses a halftone pattern to blend transitions between its stories. On the inside of the building, meanwhile, the halftone effect helps to reduce solar gain at the etched extremities, while keeping the central zone clear to retain the view.

In an effort to provide the Pixel House in Tel-Aviv, Israel, with both privacy and natural light, Anderman Architects were tasked with creating a gradient wall that ‘starts sealed but fades and disappears into the air,’ as they introduce. In order to fulfill the brief on budget, they created a wireframe of cubes in three layers, then opened or closed them at varying depths, allowing light and shadow to construct a dithered pixel pattern.

By using custom-made tiles in the interior surfaces of the Komaeyu Public Bathhouse, Jo Nagasaka and Schemata Architects were able to combine a mixture of tile sizes to create the hopeful image of Mt. Fuji by exposing the bare plaster behind. The tiles and loose stones taken from the demolished wings at the Chessy Cultural Center, meanwhile, were reused by Opus 5 architects to build large gabion walls throughout the site. The careful choice of where to position flat tiles in amongst smaller and larger sizes of rock allowed the architects to create a gradient that flows through the wall.

A curtain wall is draped over the BSH Headquarters building in Shaoxing, China, to give the facade a lighter look amongst the local architectural landscape, and curved aluminum plates create a ripple effect that seems to cause the curtain to billow in the breeze. Elsewhere, a striking yet modest feature wall is formed in brick at the VIPA Farm House by pushing a dent in the brickwork.

When a facade is made up of small components like bricks, the smaller the individual pieces, the smoother the gradient they’re able to create. When used for large-scale facades, the size and orientation of a single brick is barely noticeable. But by subtly changing its positioning, large brick facades are able to draw forms on the surface using only ingenuity and creativity. At the Road Corridor Cultural Station in Taizhou, China, for example, an undulating wave is formed on the front of the building by gradually pivoting each brick.

Although often used, these examples of dithering and halftone patterns and techniques are not the only way to create movement and gradients on static architectural surfaces. Using a double-layer facade of expanded metal mesh, for example, UNStudio created a subtle moiré effect around the outside of the Fellenoord 15 building. The facade comes to life as visitors change their viewing angle on approach.

At the NSW New Sydney Modern Building’s Gallery Shop, meanwhile, Akin Atelier worked with Haydenshapes who developed special bio-resin material to form the shop’s display shelves. The resin team ‘sintered layers of color with micro-weighted pigment volumes,’ explain Akin Atelier, ‘pouring into the custom molds for 109 consecutive days to achieve the desired gradient. Which itself speaks to the layered nature of Sydney’s sandstone geology.’

Find these selected projects featuring gradient surfaces in this ArchDaily folder created by the author.

This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Color in Architecture presented by Sto.Material, texture, sheen, and color are inseparable – the identity of a building becomes clear in an Architect’s choices of how these come together. Considering the lifecycle of a building from design, occupation, and legacy, we understand that achieving the right expression is tantamount to the success of a building. Sto’s innovative materials and data-driven color system complement design ambitions with technical knowledge and rigorous testing, to offer possibilities, accuracy, and longevity when Building in Color.Produced by Sto, the short documentary ‘Building in Colour’ is a cinematic exploration into the role of materials and color in architecture, taking the work of Stirling Prize-winning architect Michael Wilford CBE (1938 – 2023) as its starting point.Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.