Add Permanent Colour
Colour that doesn’t fade.
Saturated, stable, repeatable colour and correction for permanent installations — dichroic glass that holds its hue for the life of the project, rather than gels that shift and burn out. Rosco Permacolor makes colour a permanent architectural material.
When colour has to last as long as the building
Colour from a plastic gel is fine for a season on a stage. In a permanent installation it’s a liability: heat fades it, hours shift it, and eventually someone has to climb up and replace it. For architecture, colour needs to be a material, not a consumable.
Rosco Permacolor is dichroic glass — colour created by microscopically thin coatings that reflect unwanted wavelengths rather than absorbing them. The result is intensely saturated, precisely repeatable colour and colour-correction that stays true under heat and doesn’t fade over time.
Specify a Permacolor hue once and it reads the same across every fixture, and the same in five years as on opening night.
Colour made of glass, not dye
Dichroic, not absorptive
Thin-film coatings on glass reflect unwanted wavelengths instead of absorbing them — so colour stays saturated and the filter stays cool and stable.
Stable & repeatable
A specified hue reads consistently across fixtures and holds true over years of operation, unlike gels that drift and fade.
Saturation and correction
From deep saturated colour to precise colour-temperature correction — a permanent-grade palette for architectural light.
Colour and pattern on a 90-ft ring
Montreal’s L’Anneau — a giant polished-steel ring at Place Ville Marie — uses custom Permacolor dichroic filters, in amber, pink and Mediterranean blue, alongside custom glass gobos.
The installation shifts between saturated colour and projected pattern while lighting only the ring’s inner contour: a permanent public artwork where the colour has to look immaculate every night, for years.
What to resolve early
Permanent colour is a specification decision. CFATS can supply Permacolor swatches and confirm fit for your fixtures before commitment.
Permacolor offers a defined range of saturated colours and corrections. We help select and confirm the hue against the design intent.
Dichroic glass is cut and held to suit the luminaire. We confirm size, holder and compatibility for your specific fixtures.
Dichroic colour can shift slightly with viewing and incidence angle — worth understanding for the sightlines in your project.
Glass tolerates heat far better than gel, which is why it suits permanent, high-duty installations. We confirm suitability for the application.
Related tools and intents
Need colour that stays true?
Tell us the hue and the fixtures, and we’ll confirm the right Permacolor specification and supply it for your Australian project.