Wayfinding at Center Sandholm

Development goals

• Create safety and trust: wayfinding should be a safe hand to help newcomers navigate safely and easily.
• Intuitive orientation: wayfinding should work intuitively across age, language and culture.
• Relationship building: wayfinding should be more than signage – it should create trust, safe points of reference and meeting places around Sandholm.
• Improved clarity: the reception and key areas should be easy to find. Information should be streamlined and counterintuitive information should be minimized.
• Recognizability: inspired by the Camino, the initiative will act as a symbol of safety – a recognizable point to guide you if you feel lost.

Center Sandholm is run by the Red Cross and is the first stop for anyone seeking asylum in Denmark. This is where the first registration with the police takes place and where asylum seekers stay for the first time, typically up to three months, while their case is processed.

At the center, the Red Cross takes care of a number of basic humanitarian tasks. After months on the run, asylum seekers typically need a meal, a shower and a bed to sleep in. In addition, applicants are given basic information about the asylum process in Denmark – and they are offered a medical examination. Center Sandholm also has a kindergarten, so the children have a nice and safe place to stay while the parents go to interviews with the authorities or rest, and there are various workshops and activities that the applicants can take advantage of. One of the most important tasks at the reception is to create a safe and calm environment for asylum seekers who have traveled long and far.

The center is a former barracks area with a number of buildings of varying appearance and condition. Therefore, the center today appears as a small urban environment, with a wide range of functions that are necessary for the reception center to function, but due to poor signage and other conditions, it can be difficult to find your way around. Especially for people who, for example, do not speak English, may not be able to read the Latin alphabet and who may be both traumatized and exhausted.

In this project, we give the Red Cross a hand in making it easier to find your way around Center Sandholm by developing solutions that can facilitate orientation across cultures, languages and literacy and thus make the meeting with Denmark a better experience. Read more about the center here.