| Abstract: | This article describes research that aspires to develop a tool to restore well-tempered variety, space-time continuity, identity, and self-visualization to contemporary Greek urbanscape. This tool uses color as a building facade structuring material and takes into account confusing plastic structure and the shifting nature of contemporary Greek urban populations. the research is based on existing information and on psychometric data with users. The project included six stages: a) an estimation of the deviation of the existing representational space from the desired space representation, b) a semiotic analysis of representative building facade samples into generic color forms, (c) the recording of the color preferences of selected subjects for these forms, d) a semantic coding of the subjects' reasons for these preferences, e) the establishment of a color scheme on the basis of the resulting color combinations, and f) a comparison of the color choices by the various groups of subjects for each building category. The results show that a) color is mostly affected by the sociocultural aspect of architecture, b) function is the major parameter taken into account for middle-class constructions, c) the visual differentiation resulting from the color rendering of the facade elements according to the subjects' preferences can lead to architecture and planning identification, d) spatial, functional, and sociocultural qualities can also be attributed to the city through color-conditioning, and e) above all, color can best portray the particular character of a city, what it was, is, or wants to be in the future. |
