Anyone who has spent any time in a hospital knows that finding your way around can often be quite challenging – you may be racing to an appointment or rushing to visit a loved one, meaning you often feel sick and anxious. Finding your way around is often not easy, especially if you are a first-time visitor. Thoughtful and creative environmental signage design – which ranges from wayfinding signage design, digital screens to playful murals, wall and floor graphics – informs the person of their current and desired location and how to get from one to the other, making the space easier to navigate, more informative, and memorable for visitors. At its best, environmental signage design can creatively communicate a distinct spatial identity, implicitly and explicitly communicating the purpose of a specific space.
In this project, the challenge was to re-design the very institutional entry to Birthing Services at RBWH. Birth is an incredibly beautiful and vulnerable time for women, their partners and families, yet the standard institutional hospital entry does not reflect that. In partnership with consumers, the Women’s and Newborn Services team were keen to transform and enhance the arrival areas – to normalise and humanise this unique healthcare environment, by creating a warmer, meaningful, and memorable sense of arrival for new parents.
Who was involved?
Engaging with the dedicated clinical staff working with women and their families from the RBWH Birth Suite, led by Dr Tiarna Ernst (Obstetrician & Gynaecologist) and midwives Libby Ryan and Jeanette Tyler, the project has involved several HEAL team members. Professor Evonne Miller (co-Director of HEAL) worked with eight third-year design students from architecture and interior architecture to create innovative design visions for the space, while Dr Natalie Wright (Interior Architecture), Dr Lindy Burton (Architecture), and Associate Professor Janice Rieger (Interior Architecture) managed the final design proposals with HDR Interns Leighann Ness Wilson and Sarah Johnstone.
What was the process?
COVID-19 restricted our ability to engage consumers and clinicians in a planned co-design process to identify design priorities and create a shared vision for the entry and waiting spaces. However, the design brief was clear: to deliver a welcoming space that did not feel so institutional and created a distinctive sense of welcome and arrival for mothers and their families.
What were the outcomes?
QUT design students are currently developing several different proposals, which will include different spatial arrangements (moving doors, furniture), playful illustrations and murals on the walls, floors and roof, with quirky details helping create a unique sense of identity and arrival. Students will prototype their design ideas, outlining how different users would engage in the space and normalizing the process of giving birth. The RBWH team will then explore how best to integrate these ideas into the entry space – to create a less clinical, less stressful arrival and waiting room experience.
