One thing I find lacking in most buildings are hallway names.  For whatever reason facility planners have never gotten around to this in any of the buildings I have ever been in.  However, hallway naming would be extremely useful.  This is especially true in large buildings such as hospitals.  These buildings have a convoluted maze of corridors with room locations that are usually impossible to describe or follow.  Without hallway names, we are causing people to waste countless hours of their lives wandering hallways aimlessly, not knowing if the hallway they are walking is the correct one.

If hallways had names then Google could add building directions to Google Maps.  Your smart phone could navigate you business clients through the maze of your building straight to your office.  “In three steps, take a right on Powhite Hallway, then continue straight for ten steps…”  How great would that be?  And what about postal couriers trying to deliver packages.  How much time do they waste looking for your office?  I’m sure most of you have received at least one phone call from a courier telling you they are lost and can not find your office.

Buildings can also use this as a chance to raise money by offering hallway naming rights to donors.  Okay, maybe you don’t want to go there, but you see what I’m saying.  So fire up the old printer and simply begin by installing your own hallway names and posting them on the walls.  I’m sure you can even find street sign font and backgrounds to give them that familiar look and feel we have from driving streets.

And what about elevators?  Why do they not have room names?  Elevators may only be ‘waiting’ rooms, but you still meet people there like any other room…