The Brief: The Emergency Room at UC Davis Medical Center is one of the busiest in the country. The hospital is also home to cutting edge education and technology, and behind the scenes, world-class doctors, nurses and volunteers, work countless hours to keep this machine running smoothly. The mission was to develop a EGD system that could tell this amazing story across various physical touch points, while also satisfying a robust list of criteria.
The strategy: develop an EGD system that had five core functions*. It would need a comprehensive placemaking kit-of-parts to supplement the information-heavy wayfinding elements (1) and a strong narrative element (2). It would also need to be able to scale and adapt to any materials palette and architectural condition (3). Lastly, it must have a technological component that ensures future-proofing (4), all while also visually aligning with the UCDH brand (5).
*We would later add a sixth component to our system during Schematic Design: Universal Wayfinding.
It all begins with Discovery
…and a Little Research in Human Spatial Cognition
By understanding the processes for human cognitive mapping, we are able to design a system that will help visitors easily navigate all interior conditions, including mazes of winding corridors and 200 foot long hallways, while also serving to simply campus-wide instructions.
Establish a system of placemaking elements
Our placemaking strategy is about creating a consistent, and unique, sense of place within each and every UCDH environment, through the use of pattern, texture, imagery, and technology.
As an extension of our overall wayfinding strategy, our simple but distinct placemaking strategy is built around the idea of defining an experience according to one’s progression through a decision making process. In this way, the visitor is circulating through corridors, moving through transition points or thresholds, or arriving at a destination. Each of these stages will receive visual cues, in the form of imagery and graphics, to inform and reinforce the next step in the process. All imagery should express the UCDH principle of “Science and precise technology, compassionately delivered”.
In addition to having a high degree of modularity, our system allows for placemaking and wayfinding cues to be delivered using a variety of materials and textures, graphics, or imagery. This flexibility ensures seamless integration across all building types and finish palettes.
Here we see the placemaking system arranged in various configurations, across multiple sign types. Navigation cue patterns on the left panel-depict circulation, decision, and rest-and lifestyle graphics on the right panel. The lifestyle graphics were cropped from the bespoke artwork shown in Image 5 to help visitors identify areas. With zone reinforcement playing a key role in wayfinding, each major department is assigned a different portion of the image on their respective signs.
Brand Expression + Story
“Creating a healthier world through bold innovation.”
UCDH Brand Guidelines.
This project is rich in history and stories to tell, from the buildings and site, to the leading-edge technology and education, to the award-winning nursing staff, and finally the legendary volunteer corps. This multifaceted story will be told by weaving the various layers throughout the hierarchy of signs. Images will be the key to this story as we explore the personnel of the UCDH system- including the volunteers who have been loyal for many years, the technology being used to help patients and the history of the building and the campus itself. Using these stylized images as well as those of hospital and surgical equipment in addition to diagrams, schematic and various types of internal human body scans, we will create a history of the main hospital and the UCDH brand.
With exhibits from concept 1, we demonstrate how a multi-layered story can be expressed across the typologies of a typical signage family consisting of directional, identification, and code-required signage. This idea of multiple layers would become a driving tenet of our design effort, expressing itself, not only conceptually in the story but also literally as a design technique, when we later explored constructibility.
Visual Expression
Concept Design
Path and Portal: This concept is less about a story and more about playing with the environment to create a visual system of navigation that feels intuitive and unlabored.
Characteristics: This family of signs will be identified by its unique approach to massing and structure. Consider the use of paint and graphics around sign locations, as a supplement to the sign itself and to highlight the entry, in order to develop a strong place making vocabulary.
Innovation: Telling the story of hospital growth and its advances in technology.
Characteristics: Translucent materials, that vary in color in texture, will be used as an element in all levels of signage. Where appropriate consider highly expressed, yet sleek, mounting hardware. Consider Sign forms that resemble objects made with futuristic construction methods. We should explore laser cut edges or engraving/etching, elements that glow-or appear to, edge lighting, and layering of elements to produce form.
Schematic design
It was during Schematic Design that UCDH decided to adopt Universal Wayfinding methodologies, based on earlier recommendations from my team. This approach eliminated the need for multiple languages on signage.
Design Development
Drawings show how the final design came together. Dotted lines indicate where the placemaking components would be added, showing how functional the system can be on it’s own. The central core of each sign housed internal illumination and mounting hardware.
Technology Integration
With UCDH being home to a world-class cancer research facility and Ronald McDonald House, many children and their families often spend months at a time on-site. We aim to enhance this experience by layering in technology at various touch points to first, serve the very real need of improving communication between patients and visitors throughout the care process, but also to facilitate moments of discovery that supplement placemaking and create experience.
QR codes, hidden in placemaking artwork, launch games like Scavenger Hunt, to help patients and families pass time during long stays. Augmented Reality installations enhance, both the art program already in place, and the graphics created by my team, with user-specific experiences designed for patients in long-term and Hospice care programs.
Further develop the existing wayfinding mobile app
At the start of this project, UCDH did have an existing wayfinding app in place; however, it lacked real functionality, and while mobile app development was not part of our scope, we did make functional and design recommendations to improve overall usability as part of the updated brand experience we were creating. Some features we recommended included:
• Appointment reminders
• Door-to-door directions
• Downloadable directions
• WiFi connectivity
• Mobile check-in for appointments
• Multi-lingual translations
• QR Code reader
• Connections to Patient Information Systems
• Universal Wayfinding Integration
Experiential Signage
With this project, we asked the question, can we change how people interact with signage?
When the dust settles, we like think so. By developing a strategy that leveraged modularity and adaptable materiality, we designed a system that could fit into any environment, aligned in design approach, finish level and brand expression. But we also designed elements that felt like objects to be engaged with-touched, pushed, pulled, and even just admired. We created artwork intended to invoke feelings of calm, reduce anxiety, and contain hidden surprises and leverage digital, ever-changing ways to interact with them to craft unique experiences in a place that wanted a new story.
