Maria Fernanda Brandi, Architect

This presentation proposes a chromatic investigation method based on memories and scientific methodology. Such method can help understand the colors of the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism's building at the University of São Paulo-Brazil. Artigas’s and Cascaldi’s design lack original color specification, which makes restoration and additional research harder. Whilst there are a scarcity of physical records, other types of registers remain, such as the memory of former students who experienced the building.

According to John Dewey (1934, Art As Experience) the experimental approach to architecture focuses on the encounter of the architecture's reality with the person's mind, body and experiences. In a way, when a person enters a building, the building enters the person's previous experiences. This includes the color experienced in the environment. Pallasmaa (2017, Architecture as experience: the fusion of the world and the self) believes that we need to study architecture beyond the scientific method and understand the human experience, including our perception of color.

Thus, this article applies a chromatic research method based on the memory of its users, comparing current colors and those in memories and highlighting their influence in architecture's preservation. It uses memory as a research tool and focuses on the available literature, as well as on tools for the chromatic survey, such as colorimeter and coloraid, to base the interviewee's experience of the building.

Therefore, this research has a crucial role on the development of alternative scientific method in which there is a lack of color specification. Applied to Vilanova’s building, we hope to elucidate not only structural and formal aspects of architecture but also the predominant color experience from the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism's building.

Bio

Maria Fernanda Pilotto Brandi holds a degree in Architecture and Urbanism from the University of São Paulo (2018), currently studying MA in colour in architecture with the title: “Color in the architecture design and space: Frank Lloyd Wright a case study”. She has experience in Architecture and Urbanism, with an emphasis on Building Projects, acting on the following themes: hospital design, architectural design and interior architecture. Member of the Study Group on Color, Architecture and city of the National Council of Scientific and Technology Development.

The Inter-Society Color Council advances the knowledge of color as it relates to art, science, industry and design.
Each of these fields enriches the others, furthering the general objective of color education.