Public Art and Wayfinding at Saint Luke’s

Wayfinding is the process of navigating through physical environments, such as buildings or outdoor spaces, using signage, landmarks, and other visual cues to help individuals orient themselves to reach their desired destination. This was particularly challenging at the Saint Luke’s campus in Cleveland, Ohio where a comprehensive wayfinding strategy was necessary to ensure campus visitors could find one of eight different tenants accessible through three separate doors. To avoid frustration and remain safe, visitors needed to quickly understand where to park, which door to go in, and how to find the person or group they were seeking. Egress and room signage were also critical to ensuring that tenants, visitors, and schoolchildren always knew where they were and where to go in the event of emergency.

Helping all users understand that there were large philanthropic forces at work to make the building they were inhabiting possible in the first place was a tertiary but very important aspect of the strategy. The myriad signage and wayfinding strategies brought to bear on this one multi-phased project are presented here to better understand the art and necessity of wayfinding.