A visibility analysis as a tool for designing the emergency signage system

Abstract

In buildings of high complexity, the question of navigation and guidance can be a problem for users. Emergency signalling is the main mechanism to support the occupant in these situations. It is observed as a research problem the deficiency of criteria of the Brazilian standards of emergency signalling on the understanding and efficiency in the distribution of signalling in the built space. This factor is a result of the prescriptive character of the Brazilian standards. The paper aims to evaluate the possibility of the use of Space Syntax (SS) as a tool for the investigation and synthesis of information that subsidize the elaboration of an emergency signalling design. For that, three studies were carried out on buildings that concentrate high density of people. The study had as a working method the application of Brazilian Standard 13434: 2004 of the Brazilian Association of Technical Standards and the study of visibility supported by the theoretical scope of the SS, which allowed the comparison of data and the formulation of hypotheses, since this research is still under development, leading to the development of design parameters and evaluation of the efficiency of the emergency signalling design. The results showed the positive potential of the use of the visibility analysis with the application of the standard, which tends to show that the use of the SS as an understanding tool of the building can give support to the design of the emergency signalling project in complex spaces.