Analysing the effect of spatial organization on wayfinding and evacuation in hospitals

This dissertation study deals with evacuation which occurs as a need in case of emergency as a problem of wayfinding and analyzes it with the example of hospital. Dissertation study is intended to examine the relationship of architecture as a complement of cognitive and physical processes and spatial organization affecting the discharge with human being within the context of evacuation. Evacuation was handled within the scope of study and types of spatial organizations in hospitals were discussed. Dissertation study dealing with the evacuation in hospital buildings which may take place in complex building category in terms of function and scale brought the effect of spatial organization on evacuation in hospital designing and offers comparable examples to designers. A literature review on the cognitive processes of evacuation considered as a problem of wayfinding was performed in the first part of dissertation. Factors affecting wayfinding were analyzed and their effects on evacuation were discussed. Conditions of physical environment were discussed and relationships of physical factors used to collect the data with evacuation were examined. Furthermore characteristics of the person carrying out evacuation were discussed also. How psychological state and panic in case of evacuation affect the operation of evacuation is studied and introduced. Relationship of perception and space with evacuation was reviewed and what kind of opportunities space arrangement method, one of space analysis methods offers in terms of the analysis of evacuation were discussed. In the second part of dissertation why hospital building becomes thesis subject was tried to be explained. Spatial organization of hospital building from past to present was discussed. Readings were made for the examples of hospital spatial organization as well as the reasons for change of spatial organizations of hospital building. Duties and responsibilities of the spaces which affect the ergonomics of escape and are used during evacuation were tried to be described. Reasons of emergencies in hospitals were reviewed and examples of disasters which have occurred in this day and recent past were introduced. A model study was introduced by the use of space arrangement method and various evacuation assessments in line with the descriptions in the part of literature review. Model study is intended to seek an answer for the question " which plan chart is more appropriate for evacuation among spatial organization types?". A comparative study has been obtained due to the selected plan types and the one was evaluated as optimum example prone to the evacuation process. Furthermore effects of the parameters assessed within the scope of model on evacuation in hospital building were tried to be shown. Dissertation tried to show the effect of spatial organization on evacuation within the scope of current study and aimed at constituting an exemplary literature for the ones studying on evacuation and making a contribution to them so.