Wayfinders In Barrier Free Environments

Wayfinding is an essential spatial activity that way finders experience every day in their journeys from their origins to their required destinations. The wayfinder must perceive, explore, solve spatial problems and follow a certain route to reach his/her destination. Golledge has defined the term “wayfinding” as: “The process of determining and following a path or route between an origin and a destination.” Wayfinding process is concentrated on the perception and cognition of the wayfinder within architecture and the built environment and it is based on three processes: processing environmental information, decision-making and decision execution. It is based on the interaction between the way finder and the architectural cues. The way finder is facing two great challenges in the wayfinding process, firstly wayfinding his/her route without any barriers through the journey and secondly perceiving and analyzing the given architectural information within the environment and to choose the route independently and without any barriers to reach the destination in limited time. The barrier free environment has a great impact and direct effect on the wayfinder in the wayfinding process by the given architectural informational cues with the environment. The paper highlights on the design of the architectural in formational cues within the barrier free environment as the main force behind enhancing and facilitating for the wayfinding.