Victor,
I would use axial analysis and VGA together. Axial analysis allows you to
map complete circulation systems including routes between buildings in a
hospital campus. We have done this previously in various hospital studies -
mainly related to general circulation and to crime and security, with good
results. Axial integration for the mian route structure correlates with
movement patterns, but often with outlier spaces - this is because of the
timetabled programme in hospitals which leads to specific attractors of
movement gaining higher flows at specific times. Perhaps this is one of the
signage issues - how to direct people most easily to the locations they need
to get to when the buildings are often very unintelligible. For this kind of
thing in previous urban signage related projects we have looked at the
visual field within which the sign itself sits. The strategy here is to find
locations in which a sign brings the right information for route decisions
that must be taken. VGA analyses the 'isovist' from each location and can be
used to help this process. My main thought on this is that nothing in the
way of the analysis tools alone will replace careful thinking and
observation of the way people move, where they pause and look for
information, where they ask the way, and where they turn back and try a
different route. How much of tehse behaviousr can be accounted for by the
specific morphology of the plan, and how much by the textual information
available? Understanding this would put you in a good position to begin to
specify signage procedures and standards.
All the best,
Alan
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Behalf Of Victor Ferreira
> Sent: 11 February 2003 23:33
> To:
> Subject: Hospital Buildings
>
>
> Hello everyone, I'm participating in a research project on
> "Interdisciplinary Analysis of Sign & Guidance Systems in Hospitals", in
> Lisbon, Portugal.
> The research will try to establish a model that will enable the
> understanding of the main difficulties about the use of these facilities.
> Since I'm starting to use the space syntax tools, and don't have much
> experience with them, i don't know which could be the best tool for this
> particular purpose.
> I see axman used in a lot of studies of large buildings, but also some use
> of Pesh, and lately of VGA. I have the first ones, and VGA i'll be trying
> to use it shortly.
> We were curious also about spatialist but Prof. Peponis seems
> hard to catch
> trough is email and i never succeeded in licensing it!
> We will focus our study in three Portuguese Hospitals, of three different
> time periods, each one representative of his "kind". The more recent one
> will be a contemporary building. They are all very large and at least one,
> with the services spread trough several contiguous buildings.
> Anyone has some experience in something similar and could give me
> some word
> of advice? Anyone with some experience in the tools could give me some
> hints in which would be a better option? Would it be interesting to use
> more than one of them?
> Wouldn't Axman and Pesh give similar results in this kind of use?
> Thank you for your time and attention,
>
> Victor Ferreira
> Faculty of Architecture, Lisbon, Portugal
>
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