Shades of grey with a yellow tinge could become Guangzhou's dominant color if urban planners get their way.

The city's urban planning bureau is seeking public comment on a plan to unify Guangzhou with a dominant hue.

The plan has been put forward by a research team headed by Guo Hongyu, an urban planning professor of Guangzhou-based Sun Yat-sen University, one of the nation's key universities, following six months of investigations.

"The colors fit in with the unique geographical situation, the climate, the natural scenery, building structure and the cultural heritage and development of this South China city," the professor said.

"And it can do its best to integrate the existing mixed colors of different buildings across the city."

However, other experts including Chen Hai, a professor of Guangzhou Academy of Arts, prefer hues brighter than grey with a yellow tinge, saying that brighter colors would alleviate the feeling of oppression on the hazy days.

"Only brighter colors can reflect the historical and cultural features characteristic of Guangzhou," Chen said.

While some property developers and designers are against unified color planning, there is a push for it among others.

"Generally, we base our exterior color application of properties on the surroundings, the architectural styles of the properties as well as developers' opinions," Xie Zhenyu, an architectural designer in Guangzhou, said. "Unified color planning makes it difficult for a new property to compliment the surroundings or to stand out to become eye-catchers."

Right hue or not

But others, such as Chen Xiaohui, a university teacher in Guangzhou, have advocated color planning across the city.

"Many cities look almost the same in China," she said. "Color planning can be one of the ways to make Guangzhou different from other cities, and color planning will make it easier for Guangzhou to be remembered by the outsiders including foreign friends. 

"The only thing we need to care about is choosing the right hue that can really reflect Guangzhou all over."

Peng Gaofeng, deputy director of Guangzhou Urban Planning Bureau, said public feedback would be closely studied, ahead of the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.

"Our idea is to propose guidelines for color design and application in the future urban planning instead of urging all the buildings in the city to unify the color applications," he said.

The official said that public facilities such as bus-stops and billboards would be subject to the unified color applications after the dominant hue was chosen.

Guangzhou is not the nation's first city to consider color planning.

Wenzhou and Hangzhou in East China's Zhejiang Province, Nanjing in East China's Jiangsu Province, Wuhan in Central China's Hubei Province, and Chongqing in Southwest China have all put into practice color planning in urban planning.

Editor: Yan