Comparative Analysis On Malls Characteristics Towards Their Wayfinding System

Abstract

Even though Malls are modernly innovated, they have become one of the most prominent landmarks in the contemporary cities and one of the most powerful centers of attraction for their inhabitants. In consideration of that shopping and walking are, themselves, the major activities inside such buildings; therefore, layout, visual, movement, and geometric properties have the greatest impact on way finding factor inside such buildings, which has a great role in bringing greater comfort for its users and higher efficient use. Despite the fact that it has a critical importance and a great role in evaluating the successfulness or failure of such building, the relationship between these characteristics and wayfinding in Malls did not take its importance of the study. This is the reason why this paper aims at revealing this relationship by using an analytical methodology through comparing three different layouts where structural properties of the studied Malls have been extracted by using “DepthMap” software. Whereas, the other properties have been statistically accounted according to the necessary methods. And, all these properties we considered as independent factors. Nevertheless, the indicator of the factor of the ability of wayfinding (Dependent Factor) has been concluded through applying a survey on a sample of Mall-users (35person) who were experienced them through virtual reality environment. The results show that there is significant correlation between the structural properties of Malls and the visitors’ ability of wayfinding in Malls. Moreover, this study has revealed that most of the users prefer the linear layout which has complex-geometric characteristics somehow other than the other layouts according to what it provides of a balance between illegibility on a hand, variety, joy, and visual amenity on the other hand.

Keywords

• wayfinding
• malls
• illegibility
• layouts
• virtual reality
• depth map