Wayfinding architectural criteria for the design of complex environments in emergency scenarios (original) (raw)
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Spatial Familiarity and Exit Route Selection in Emergency Egress
Fire Technology, 2019
Familiarity is widely accepted as a key variable for the exit route selection of occupants of a building in emergency egress, but how to evaluate it has not been well researched. In addition, familiarity with general space layout (building familiarity) and familiarity with exits (exit familiarity) are often interchangeably used, which may cause inappropriate understanding of building and occupant characteristics among fire engineers and architects. In the current study, a paper-based survey was conducted to examine the difference between the two familiarities in a six-story library building. The two familiarities were implicitly evaluated by the spatial knowledge of the participants on the locations of restrooms, elevators, stairways for exit purposes in an emergency, and their current location. Sixty-nine valid responses of the participants' spatial knowledge were semi-quantitatively evaluated based upon the accuracy of the answered position against the actual position. The results reveal that the two familiarities are not synonymous and needs to be understood and handled differently in fire engineering. In particular, the location of emergency-only exit stairways was perceived as low as 20% of non-emergency-only stairways; on average, each of the former and latter stairways was perceived by 8 and 33 participants out of 69 participants, respectively. This result raises concerns about the efficacy of the emergency-only-exit concept. The direction of the next destination out of a building was found to be a key factor to determine the travel route within a building where occupants have good familiarity with the building and surrounding places.
WAYFINDING STUDY AT A BUILDING OF FACULTY OF ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN
ARCHTHEO ’24 / XVIII. INTERNATIONAL THEORY AND HISTORY OF ARCHITECTURE CONFERENCE, 2024
Wayfinding should ensure that individuals do not waste time or feel anxious while reaching their specific destinations. Investigating this process in school buildings is crucial due to the necessity of reaching classrooms promptly without causing stress. This study was conducted as the term project of the master’s degree course ARCH 503 Theory of Architecture, examining wayfinding in the Faculty of Architecture and Design at a university building, and investigating how alternative routes and architectural design affect reaching specific spaces. The methodological approach adopted in the study is based on a task-oriented wayfinding study, which involves participants finding designated spaces as a directed task, hence behaviour maps were used. In this way, wayfinding behaviour within the faculty building was examined in depth based on behaviour maps and observations. One of the main objectives of this study is to evaluate wayfinding within both horizontal and vertical circulation in the building. Thus, elevator usage was restricted during the research process. Reasons for this include the availability of floor plans inside the elevators and clearer accessibility to floors via elevator buttons. Therefore, the most common and preferred route was to go down the stairs from the main entrance staircase and then use the main staircase to reach the relevant floors. Additionally, using the fire exit could have caused confusion during wayfinding and negatively impacted the process. This study was conducted with the participation of twenty students who were unfamiliar with the faculty building and were expected to find the spaces sequentially, as instructed by the researchers. The students’ unfamiliarity with the faculty building and their equal levels of knowledge helped the research in achieving more reliable results. Additionally, sequentially finding spaces was aimed at reducing the complexity or diversity within behaviour maps. The navigation time to find the spaces was recorded, and the route of each participant was documented as a behaviour map. All the twenty routes were overlapped onto a single map, demonstrating the hesitation points with the reasons observed during wayfinding. In addition, the data obtained from the behaviour maps were supported by the responses to questions posed to participants at the end of the study. As a result of this study, the routes followed, the more preferred route, the duration of each navigation, the route distances, the total time of all the completed routes, the space, which was the most difficult and easiest to find, and the reasons of the challenges were revealed. The findings demonstrate that during wayfinding, the signs, colours, sizes, the impact of crowding within the space, and lighting play significant roles. Additionally, as the wayfinding study also involves vertical navigation within the building, it is understood that the ergonomic design of the stairs significantly affects wayfinding. In conclusion, the study highlighted the importance of considering architectural design elements such as signage and spatial layout in enhancing wayfinding efficiency and user experience within educational environments. These insights contribute to broader discussions on optimizing navigational strategies in complex building settings, showing that this study provided insight into the impact of plan configuration and signage on wayfinding behaviour in higher education buildings.
2016
This paper involves individuals' safety in historical buildings in case of fire. An innovative continuous wayfinding system is proposed by using photoluminescent adhesive tiles placed on the paths floor. The system effectiveness is evaluated through evacuation drills in a significant case study (an Italian-style historical theatre). Evacuation times are reduced up to 30% while using the proposed system in respect to the traditional one, also because of the efficient addressing of secondary paths to occupants. Current fire safety regulations in historical buildings are generally limited to the number and dimension of exits and evacuation paths. This approach clearly clashes with preservation criteria because of the need of invasive layout modifications. On the contrary, a "behavioural design" approach could solve this conflict by proposing evacuation facilities based on effective human behaviours. This work proposes an innovative wayfinding system based on phtoluminescent continuous signs. Experiments in a significant real world scenario demonstrate the possibility to considerably decrease the evacuation timing without building layout modifications. Building heritage fire safety, Historical theatres, PLM materials, Reversible systems for human safety and occupants' evacuation, Continuous wayfinding system
Human wayfinding behaviour and metrics in complex environments: a systematic literature review
The university campuses situated in metropolitan city centres have morphed into complex environments due to congested layout and high-rise buildings. The environmental legibility for wayfinding within these environments is a great matter of concern. These environments have a significant visual absence of dedicated traditional cues for pedestrian navigation, such as distinguishable intersections, dedicated pathways, and information signage. This study presents a systematic review of various factors affecting wayfinding behaviour in complex environments. Five keywords including 'university campus wayfinding', 'crosscultural wayfinding', 'virtual wayfinding', 'signage pictograms' and 'unfamiliar environment wayfinding' have been formulated from research questions. The articles have been searched in four most relevant research databases. Out of 4257, twenty-seven articles have been selected. Factors such as environment complexity, wayfinding metrics, environmental familiarity, experimental settings, signage design, and cultural differences are critically discussed. This paper also discusses the technological contributions of virtual and augmented reality in the exploration of wayfinding behaviour.
The floor strategy: Wayfinding cognition in a multi-level building
2006
This short paper is concerned with strategies and cognitive processes of wayfinding in public buildings. We conducted an empirical study in a complex multi-level building, comparing performance measures of experienced and inexperienced participants in different wayfinding tasks. Thinking aloud protocols provided insights into navigation strategies, planning phases, use of landmarks and signage. Three specific strategies for navigation in multi-level buildings were compared. The cognitively efficient floor strategy was preferred by experts over a central-point strategy or a direction strategy, and overall was associated to better wayfinding performance. Wayfinding in three-dimensional structures 1 Many people have problems finding their way around public buildings such as airports, hospitals, or university buildings. We aim to identify how human wayfinding strategies and background knowledge foster navigation in a complex multi-level setting. Almost all controlled studies into wayfinding performance and building complexity have limited themselves to investigating movement and orientation in the horizontal plane of isolated floor levels. Soeda, Kushiyama and Ohno (1997) observed wayfinding performance in tasks involving vertical level changes. They found that a) people loose their orientation due to vertical travel and b)-often falsely-assume that the topology of the floor plans of different levels is identical.
A cognitive approach for improving built environment and users’ safety in emergency conditions
TeMa, 2019
Cognitive Systems Criteria are applied to develop Building Components for individuals' emergency safety in architectural spaces. The System Architecture is defined to firstly monitor built environment conditions and human behaviors in emergency evacuation. Data are sent to a central unit and Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are developed to detect critical emergency conditions. Interactive Building Components change their status basing on KPI thresholds, to provide support to the evacuees (i.e. wayfinding). Significant applications to indoor and outdoor architectural spaces are provided to demonstrate the proposed approach capabilities. Cognitive Systems can be applied in architectural spaces to improve Built Environment performances basing on users' needs. They can: 1) jointly monitor environmental conditions and human behaviours through Cognitive Built Environment (CBE) components; 2) use human-environment interaction models and related Key Performance Indicators to detect critical situations; 3) adapt CBE devices status to inform users on how to properly behave. This approach is applied to safety performances of outdoor (earthquake) and indoor (fire) scenarios, by proposing and testing solutions to support evacuees while reaching safe areas and rescuers' support.
Assessment of Wayfinding Performance in Complex Healthcare Facilities: A Conceptual Framework
Sustainability, 2022
Wayfinding is considered to be one of the most demanding challenges to be performed by hospitals' users. Wayfinding has been an interest among researchers from different fields, such as architecture, interior design, cognitive psychology, and facilities management, to name a few. Previous scholars have highlighted the need for a holistic framework taking into consideration both user and environmental factors. A narrative review of the literature was carried out to understand the full extent of the issue and address the ever-increasing demand for a holistic assessment framework. This article attempts to address the underlying gap by proposing a comprehensive framework that takes into account both facets of the issue through a narrative review of the literature to some of the most prominent research attempts to address the problem of wayfinding in complex healthcare settings. Furthermore, the proposed framework can assist both researchers and practicing professionals by providing a comprehensive understanding of the issue of complex wayfinding as well as of the variables to be investigated in the assessment process.
Up the down staircase: Wayfinding strategies in multi-level buildings
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2006
The intention of this article is to create a link between human spatial cognition research and architectural design. We conducted an empirical study with human subjects in a complex multi-level building and compared thinking aloud protocols and performance measures of experienced and inexperienced participants in different wayfinding tasks. Three specific strategies for navigation in multilevel buildings were compared. The central point strategy relies on well-known parts of the building; the direction strategy relies on routes that first head towards the horizontal position of the goal, while the floor strategy relies on routes that first head towards the vertical position of the goal. We show that the floor strategy was preferred by experienced participants over the other strategies and was overall tied to better wayfinding performance. Route knowledge showed a greater impact on wayfinding performance compared to survey knowledge. A cognitive-architectural analysis of the building revealed seven possible causes for navigation problems. Especially the staircase design was identified as a major wayfinding obstacle. Finally we address the benefits of cognitive approaches for the architectural design process and describe some open issues for further research. r