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Layering of elements within healthcare facilities can help establish a natural, step-by-step wayfinding approach. “We’re thinking about scale, we’re thinking about lighting and color,” says Brooke Behnfeldt, principal, (Cincinnati). “It’s all those sorts of visual cues that people pick up on immediately and intuitively.”
Adds Mary Dietrich, managing director, experiential design at Kolar (Cincinnati), “It’s about creating simple hierarchies that lead your eye through the space,” she says.
“We’re all different. Some of us appreciate words, some of us remember color elements, some appreciate other visuals. What we’re trying to do in wayfinding is trigger the mind.” Ideally, all these elements work together to reinforce the path.
A common scenario in renovations and expansions, says HDR’s Von Lehe, is that facilities “want to solve a wayfinding problem by adding another thing rather than going through the exercise of removing a roadblock.”
And whether it’s a renovation or a new build, “less is more” should be the wayfinding mantra, according to all the designers consulted, to keep visual clutter to a minimum and build in moments to pause and consider the next step.
For example, GBBN recently redesigned the main entrance for UC Health UC Medical Center in Cincinnati. Aaron Anderson, market design leader and principal at GBBN, says that some existing elements “were deliberately relocated or better situated to provide for an appropriate amount of arrival, a place to come in and transition and take their jackets off.”
Changes included relocating the gift shop, repositioning bathrooms and guest services, and centrally locating an information desk to help direct movement. “The information desk is a key moment, with visually free space around it,” says Kolar’s Dietrich, who worked with GBBN on the project, “so you can appreciate it as a destination point.
