Patsy Marshall and Team Explore Inclusive Community Building

In early 2023 a Sheridan College Generator Growth Grant was awarded for a project entitled, “Inclusive Community Building at Sheridan: A Wayfinding Journey at the Trafalgar Road Campus: A Built Environment Review of the Trafalgar Campus for an Aging Population.”

The goal of this project was to better understand how individuals aged 55+ of all abilities interact, access and navigate post-secondary built environments, aiming to identify what is, and what is not, working. These findings will contribute to Sheridan College’s campus planning processes and the improvement and expansion of existing wayfinding systems at Sheridan’s Trafalgar Campus.

For the purpose of our report, “wayfinding” is defined by the Society for Experiential Graphic Design (SEGD) as “information systems that guide people through a physical environment and enhance their understanding and experience of the space”.

The positive results of the project, according to the participants, were:

• Campus is welcoming
• Variety of signage to support wayfinding (Glenn – insert pages 14 and 15 photos)

Areas of improvement include:

• Positioning of signage and types of signage
• Need to highlight the locations or availability of ramps and elevators
• Main entrance is poorly marked

This project was completed by:

The authors would also like to share a special thanks to the participants who generously took the time to participate in this study, as well as for all of the helpful feedback shared by peers, colleagues and community members throughout the course of the project.

You can check the project out on Source, here.

Kathryn Warren-Norton [Communication and Project Coordinator, Sheridan Centre for Elder Research], Angela Iarocci [Professor and Coordinator, Faculty of Animation, Arts & Design], Patsy Marshall [Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences],
Lia Tsotsos [Director, Sheridan Centre for Elder Research], Danielle Roberts [Research Assistant], Dante Ballon [Research Assistant], Yi Ding [Research Assistant].