ABSTRACT
The novel COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial calamities in developing countries such as Iran, which initially suffered from inadequate infrastructure essential for the pandemic control. Due to the ongoing development of this malady, healthcare centers are recognized as one of the most significant hotspots within public settings so they are directly pertinent to the physical and mental health of visitors. The main objective for conducting the present study is to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the visitors' wayfinding procedure within Qa'em hospital, located in Rasht, northern Iran. The adopted methodology in the present study is based on a comparison between the collected data regarding the wayfinding behavior of visitors before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic using mixed methods, namely Space Syntax, gate counting, people following, and semi-structured interviews. The obtained empirical results displayed that visitors were significantly confused and hesitant throughout their wayfinding process after the outbreak of the pandemic. Indeed, spatial accessibility and legibility were not found to be adequate for facilitating the wayfinding of the visitors. Moreover, the requirements for the reconfiguration of furniture layout in the waiting areas, according to the underlying notions of social distancing, became conspicuous as the pragmatic implications for the postpandemic healthcare centers. (c) 2022 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/4.0/).
ABSTRACT
Purpose This study aims to explore the impact of spatial configuration on behavioral patterns of visitors in the ground floor of health-care spaces. Design/methodology/approach In this study, the Space Syntax analysis was used to combine visibility graph analysis and axial line analysis with empirical observation of visitors' activities. Two types of observation methods on visitors were conducted to discover the behavioral patterns of individuals, respectively, named "gate counts" and "people following." Findings The outcomes of this research revealed that the spatial arrangements of pathways, public areas, vertical circulations, entrance space, lobby, emergency department, reception desk and pharmacy have a significant influence on the way that visitors perceive the health-care environment. Research limitations/implications The current research is limited to two aspects of effective wayfinding (configuration of health care and geometry). Future work can investigate the other potential factors coupled with the current factor as an integrated research for enhancing wayfinding and sustaining accessibility. Another limitation is that the observation results for this study had been conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic and future studies can compare these results with the current COVID-19 situation within health care environments. Originality/value A large amount of research has focused on the needs of populations in developed countries. This topic has not been investigated thoroughly by professionals in developing countries such as Iran. Accordingly, this study benefits environmental psychologists and architects by revealing the effective characteristics of legible spaces in health-care environments.