In Living Color

Edie Cohen -- Interior Design, 3/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

WHO: Jill Pilaroscia.

WHAT: Palettes that bring diversity to large-scale commercial and residential projects.

HOW: "I work with architects and designers to make sure colors resonate."

Jill Pilaroscia thinks pink. Charcoal, chocolate, and chartreuse, too. And she challenges designers and other clients to see the world through rainbow-colored glasses.

Trained as a fine artist, the Queen of Color founded her studio, Architectural Colour, in 1980—then spent a dozen years as a facilities consultant for Hewlett-Packard. She renamed her firm Colour Studio in 1996, and worldwide commercial commissions soon followed. At a Gensleroffice project in Asia, Pilaroscia had to work around mores that bar the use of black or white for interiors. Collaborating with DMJM Rottet on an Atlanta high-rise office, she delivered visual diversity across the many floors.

Closer to home, in San Francisco, Red Envelope called her in to splash signature tones on the walls of its headquarters by the Huntsman Architectural Group. "I gave it an almost retail look," she says. She's also done her share of Bay Area houses and apartments, coming up with a radiant red entry here, a restorative pale sage spa there.

The dining room of her own Castro district home, she says, is "painted like a head of watercress." And the rest of the house? "An orchestrated cacophony of color." That means everything but linen white.

Jill Pilaroscia stands in the dining room of her own San Francisco house.

From top: The yellowfin-tuna freshness chart Pilaroscia created for H&N Foods International. Her pure red at Red Envelope's San Francisco headquarters by the Huntsman Architectural Group. Dry pigments for her promotional brochure. Red Envelope's warm brick, balanced by the carpet's cool blue and green.