Wayfinding Strategies in Interior Architecture, Case study: National Library of Iran

People use wayfinding strategies every day. However, they are not aware of the importance of infrastructure helping them to arrive. wayfinding process involves a series of decisions made by those who are moving in the environment. These decisions are guided by architecture criteria and the elements of space design as well as the signs. All of these factors lead to the conclusion that it is important for people to successfully navigate their way in public buildings and other places. This is because it increases productivity, ease of access, and personal health on the one hand and decreases failure in navigate selection, stress, worry, delay in arrival, and the time spent on the way on the other hand. For navigating in architectural spaces, people use strategies to guide them in the space and help them get to their destinations in the building. The information highlights the importance of this research study: 1. Designing interior spaces to facilitate wayfinding in architecture is a very complex responsibility the basic processes of which are not fully clear yet. 2. Today, due to the lack of a way to design interior spaces which facilitates wayfinding, architecture is greatly dependent on architects. As a result, what is being built today is strongly influenced by fashion and imposed taste. 3. The majority of architects do not care about wayfinding, because they believe it prevents elegant design of space. They think wayfinding problems should be tackled by installing signs on important points. Achieving the ease of wayfinding in the interior space is a factor that increases readability. This seemingly simple activity provides a serious challenge to architecture design. It is because wayfinding for users of interior space is purposeful and directional behavior. It is a dynamic movement from place of origin to destination and includes the interaction between user and the environment. It is not directly perceived by users and in some cases leads to failure, frustration, or being lost. The interaction between the operator and the environment is studied as a wayfinding strategy with a conceptual structure and is used by people to find their purpose. Considering the fact that this science is new in Iran, the aim of the present paper is to achieve wayfinding strategies. The present study aims at selecting a case which is public and can be used by all users (and not just a special group of them) and can be permanently used by all people freely (not just at a specific period of time). On the other hand, readability depends on two main variables: 1) The complexity of spatial layout and 2) Prominence and importance of the signs). Complexity of spatial layout occurs in two dimensions and importance of signs occurs in three dimensions. As a result, the case (the National Library of Iran) was selected with an emphasis on these two principles in two stages; the first step: choosing a building among cultural buildings with different cultural functions (cultural center, museum, library, exhibition, and research center) through interviewing professional architects, and the second stage: the final selection of the case with the help of application of space syntax software (Depthmap). Considering the two stages, readability in the National Library of Iran is extremely low compared to other cases. Qualitative research method was used in this article based on knowledge of the environment and observation of behavior-environmental data of individuals. In the present study, in addition to field notes, video footage and audio recordings of individuals during navigating were used by a video camera as a tool to obtain the required information. Obtaining the data during wayfinding emphasizes on interior architecture. As a result, users use the strategies of reference framework, direct, systematic search, and identification of the destination and route, in chronological order in order to experience the highest number of cases of getting lost to the lowest number. Then, the main points of the interior space were obtained through the process of achieving wayfinding strategies to be used by users to facilitate wayfinding. In strategy of reference framework, users find their position as far as possible with the help of familiar parts of the building such as stairs, elevators, and the point of entry and entrance hall. In direct navigating strategy, straight lines are considered in internal space, which can be matched with the element of edge. In accordance with the definition of a systematic search strategy and design principles, spaces with the same application should be in one area. This increases spatial knowledge of user. With the help of these strategies and discovering what is important to people while navigating, we can obtain the principles of architectural design that increase readability and prevent the confusion of users in complex spaces.