The TAIK Maze

University of Art and Design Helsinki (UIAH or TAIK in Finnish) is the largest art and design school in Scandinavia. The school is founded in 1871, but has been in its present location, the old Arabia ceramic factory building, only since 1987. The school has numerous studios from ceramics, glass blowing, fashion and industrial design, to Motion picture and Television studios. Due to mold problems, most administrative offices have moved to the newer part of the building where the library and the school cafeteria are also located. This building, which is adjacent to the current Arabia factory, also houses the iittala/Arabia factory outlet store and a furniture store.

Finding various departments appears to be easy since there is clear signage everywhere, but the path one must take in order to go from one floor to another requires more creativity! For example, the main entrance to the building takes one to the 2^nd floor! To go to the office of the student union, TOKYO, which is located in the basement, one must take the stairs up! Three flights of stairs would take one to level 4! There is an elevator right in front of the staircase that would take one down to level 1. Then, one would need to find the one and only elevator down the hall that goes to level K (the basement). Now going to see Helena, the International Student Counselor, on the 3^rd floor of the new building from the TOKYO office is a different story. To do this, one must first take the elevator to the 6^th floor. After going through the fashion design department, the 6^th floor magically becomes the 5^th! The elevator on the 5^th floor is the only one that can take you to the 3^rd floor of the new building! I wonder sometimes whether this is purposely designed this way in order to highlight the importance usable design! After all, TAIK is one of the leading institutions in the area of usability and user-inspired design.