Person-Centered Wayfinding at the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital Campus

How do you create a "radically inclusive" wayfinding system? Zuckerberg San Francisco General (ZSFG) hospital recognized that challenges in navigating their campus had become a barrier to serving their community.

ZSFG aspired to develop a comprehensive and integrated wayfinding strategy to support current and future building renovations and additions on campus, construction disruptions, and department and clinic relocations. ZSFG is a high-volume public safety net hospital, trauma center, and healthcare campus serving a diverse population with wide-ranging mobility, sensory, cognitive, cultural, socio-economic, language, literacy, and acuity needs. Originally built in the late 1800's, the expansive campus now has thirteen buildings and continues to grow and change.

In this session, Boulder Associates Architects' research team, BA/Science, describe their person-centered approach which gathered evidence to point designers and decision makers in the right direction. Research activities were designed to understand how diverse campus users create internal maps, calculate routes, and recognize distinct places in current and future states. Results from this study provided recommendations for the design of wayfinding signage & graphics, operational process improvements, and infrastructure improvements.