Orientation in and Around Large Buildings: Guidelines and Architects

Wayfinding and orientation problems for visitors of large buildings such as hospitals and offices are still prevalent in spite of a long tradition of research on spatial cognition. Analysis of suchproblems indicates that the characteristics of the building mainly cause these problems. These problems can be prevented by a design tool that aims at improving the orientation of users in large buildings, as changing a building afterwards is often expensive and impractical. As a base for such a design tool, guidelines are derived from the research on wayfinding and orientation. However, guidelines are only part of the solution. This design tool should be structured and presented in a form useful to architectural designers. In order to enhance its usefulness, architects of large public buildings studied a draft version of the tool and were interviewed about: (i) presentation form preferred for the tool and the guidelines, as well as the guideline contents, (ii) the function of the design tool with regard to the architects'design style, (iii) typical design solutions which specifically support or conflict with the guidelines, (iv) possible conflicts resulting from the guideline suggestions, in relation to other goals of the client or the architect. In the paper we discuss the results of the interviews and present our conclusions. We also demonstrate a prototype of the design tool