Above is a picture of the Modern Language Building at the University of Michigan. Looking at it, people may expect to navigate it easily. After all, it is only four hallways designed around a block of space. However, after entering the building, it is very easy to get turned around and ending up having to circle to the other side. The complexity of this building should be rather low, meaning that the building does not provide much mental stimulation. However, the issue lies with the high coherence of the design, or how well it all fits together: there are no differences between each of the outside hallways. This, in turn, lowers the legibility, or ability to navigate, of the area because of a lack of landmarks.

Some ways to possibly resolve these issues can be rather simple. For example, painting the hallway on each end a different color could decrease coherence. The effect of legibility then, would be that students would know that they entered the classroom through, let’s say, the blue hallway that they arrived at by way of the red hallway. Students could then retrace their steps and exit through the proper door. These varying color schemes could also increase the complexity of the space, as students try to understand the floor-plan on a deeper level as a result of the color variance. Another way to increase legibility would be to post signs, either on the walls or hanging from the ceilings, pointing toward restroom or exits onto specific roads outside. 

The concept of mystery, which is the promise of more information through providing a small amount, is hard to create in a building. However, the jointed turns on the east and west ends of the building may create this by being curved, so students would want to walk the rest of it to see where the building continues to. In buildings, though, this characteristic would be difficult to include.

However, if this building were to be knocked down and rebuilt there are some even better ways to improve the overall layout. Step one would be to arrange the classrooms around common areas, that would be given names, and assign them easy to distinguish room numbers. For example, if the name for one of these common areas was the Gerald Ford Atrium, then to find the proper room students would need perhaps the floor number, the area name, and the room number. There would need to be some form of directory or signs to direct people to each common area, and setting out other landmarks such as pictures on the walls or trophy cases would help with navigating the space as well. Designing the building in this way would increase complexity as students try to explore the different common areas, as well as legibility as the landmarks allow navigation between each space. Coherence would drop, then, as each hallway and common area would be different.

            Above is a picture of Magdalen College, one of the colleges of Oxford University. The grounds are organized similar to what is described above as a suggestion for the Modern Language Building. From looking at the picture, it is evident that the buildings themselves are not named, with New Building being the exception. Instead locations are identified by the name of the quad, such as St. Swithun’s, the staircase number, such as 4, and then the room number in that staircase, let’s say room 8 for example. To navigate then, all students need is the name of the quad, the staircase number, and the room number. Complexity is high, because there is a lot of space to explore, legibility is high as well because the quads can serve as landmarks due to the fact that they are all shaped differently, which in turn lowers coherence. The design of the Modern Language Building could possibly be a more preferred environment for students if it followed the design of the Magdalen College grounds.

Sources

Alexander, Ishikawa & Silverstein (1977) Circulation of Realms. A Pattern Language, 480-484.   NY: Oxford University Press.

De Young, R. (2016, November). Contrasting Familiarity and Preference. Behavior and the             Environment. Lecture conducted from University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.