الفهرس 
INTRODUCTIONOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 165 |  |  |
| | | from | 165 | | |
Abstract
Wayfinding presents a significant aspect in architectural design since it is associated with the spatial organization and the legibility of indoor environments. It is believed that the physical characteristics of the indoor environments influence the performance of individuals in finding their way in complex buildings. Navigation in such buildings can be a distressing process if the needed spatial information is not clearly presented to users; hence, it is believed that it is important during the design phase to consider the factors that affect the wayfinding performance of users. The degree of effectiveness of these factors and their legibility has been the focus of multiple researches as an attempt to rank these factors and obtain their weight of importance. This study examines these factors and focuses on the design variables that influence their legibility. Furthermore, it attempts to develop a quantitative evaluation model that assesses wayfinding in complex buildings in terms of their architectural design variables, through assigning weights of importance to these variables. In order to design this architecturalwayfinding evaluation (AWE) model, the study adopted a framework that included: identification and weighting of variables, data collection, data analysis, and validation of results. Among the multiple types of complex buildings, the focus of this study is shopping centres in particular as they represent a challenge and levels of complexity to many users. Shopping centres has been referred to, in many occasions, as indoor cities since they are large and cognitively complex indoor environments with various destinations and facilities. For the purpose of implementing and testing the proposed AWE model, four case studies were conducted in shopping centres in Egypt. In each case study, the AWE model was applied and its results were compared with the design of the architectural variables and with the performance of users during wayfinding and spatial cognition tasks. It was found that the performance of users during the study was consistent with the results of the AWE model. This suggests that the assigned weights of the design variables were rather logical and that the quantitative evaluation of buildings’ legibility is possible. These findings help in defining the design priorities for wayfinding; Building configuration and its complexity are regarded as the first priority, followed by architectural differentiation, visual accessibility, and lastly, landmarks. Furthermore, based on these findings, the study proposed some design recommendations for designing complex buildings in general and shopping centres in particular.