The onset of disorientation

The GW2 opened in October 1973 and, with approximately 15,000 m² of usable floor space, is one of the largest buildings on the Bremen campus. At that time, it accommodated around 3,000 students and some 300 teaching staff, and served as a hub where learning, teaching and working converged. Even after moving into the spacious complex, the question remained as to how wayfinding in the new building could be ensured, as little importance had been attached to wayfinding during the planning stage and there were many inconsistencies. Originally, the consortium of architects proposed bringing in a consultant specialising in ‘wayfinding within the building’. For budgetary reasons, this was not feasible. For GW2, the solution was found in the form of a colour and wayfinding scheme. To this end, various coloured elements were used within the building’s interior as orientation aids. These include, for example, markings on concrete columns and various door signs. However, these measures did not replace a fully-fledged wayfinding concept designed to enable independent and hassle-free navigation.

Shortly after the opening, it became clear just how difficult it actually was for students, staff or lecturers to find their way around the corridors of the GW2. The assumption that one could inherently find one’s way around the various levels and corridors without a standardised wayfinding system consequently proved untenable. This situation did not go unnoticed for long, prompting a response from the AStA. As a result, the ‘Orientation Guide for GW2 Victims’ was produced – an attempt to depict the building’s levels in the form of a sketch.

It was not until 1980 that a long-term and binding solution was found, involving the establishment of a fixed internal signage system. This was based on the wayfinding system of the nearby NW2, which was designed by the architect Felix Uhlig. However, the standardised signage did not resolve the fundamentally complex structure of the building, which is why finding one’s way round remained a challenge.

These problems persist to this day. In particular, the varying layout of the levels and the lack of access to the fourth level via the stairwells and lift towers lead to a perpetual sense of disorientation, regardless of how many years pass. Adjustments are made regularly, such as highlighting the lettering in red against a bright background and illuminating individual corridors.

The failed ‘open-plan office’ experiment

Equally unusual was the initial concept for the use of GW2. The first floor of the building, above the car park, was designed as an open-plan office. Particularly for the Work Studies/Politics degree programme, the focus here was to be on fostering collaboration between students, teaching staff and administrative staff. The aim was to facilitate flat hierarchies and egalitarian structures whilst also promoting short lines of communication.

The open-plan area was primarily divided by movable partition walls and demarcated by coloured markings for orientation. However, the weaknesses of the project became apparent immediately upon its implementation. Characterised by a lack of space, a shortage of quiet areas, poor acoustics and problems with the air-conditioning, the university was forced to announce the failure of the spatial organisation at the beginning of 1976.

Looking back, this raises the question: do the initial planning and implementation problems continue to have an impact today?

Orientation in the GW2 as a way-finding experiment

A study by Ekaterina Fuchkina, who examined the orientation and movement of people in the GW2 as part of her doctoral thesis, provides a contemporary perspective on this question. Her research shows how people move through and find their way around the building today.

We spoke to Ekaterina Fuchkina about her research carried out in the GW2. Fuchkina is a researcher at the Chair of Computer Science in Architecture and Urban Planning (InfAU) at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. She was led to the GW2 by an earlier study conducted by her department: as far back as 2013, students had carried out a wayfinding experiment in the building as part of a design studio. When Fuchkina later sought a building for her doctoral thesis that offered different routes to the same destination, she was directed to the GW2. For Fuchkina, this is precisely what makes the GW2 so distinctive as a subject of study. In straightforward buildings, the underlying principle is that the shortest route is also the straightest. The various routes to the destination therefore differ very little from one another. In the GW2, however, these characteristics do not align. A route here may be short, yet at the same time be winding and involve several changes of direction. Similarly, one’s line of sight may extend straight across a room, whilst the actual route requires a detour.

As part of the study, Fuchkina first conducted a web-based survey. This initially gathered general information about the participants, as well as details of their navigational skills and knowledge of the GW2. The focus was on five tasks on an interactive floor plan: for each specified starting point and destination, the participants were asked to select the route they would take. In order to subsequently distinguish between actual local knowledge and plausible guesswork, Fuchkina also incorporated control items into the survey. Alongside a real photograph of a floor plan, participants were also shown an AI-generated image depicting an area that does not exist in the GW2. A total of 80 responses were included in the subsequent analysis.

Many paths, one destination

Surprisingly, the analysis shows that only 44 per cent of respondents stated, in response to the control item, that they did not recognise the generated, non-existent image. The more experienced the participants were with GW2, the less frequently this response was chosen. “Apparently, people would rather give an answer than admit that they do not know a place,” Fuchkina notes.

Further findings from the study show that, in the GW2, people do not necessarily prefer the shortest route when choosing a path. Rather, the decisive factor is how ‘simple’ a route appears to be. Strikingly often, participants chose routes with few changes of direction, even if this meant taking a longer route. Fuchkina emphasises that ‘short’ is perceived more as ‘straight’. For a smaller proportion of respondents, however, other aspects were paramount in their choice of route, such as a pleasant environment, lighting or the view.

It is also interesting to note that the aspect of experience, mentioned earlier, plays an important role. Whilst experience can make orientation easier, according to Fuchkina it ‘apparently does not make the building simple’. This is because, despite years of familiarity with the building, respondents still reported occasionally getting lost.

People save effort, not metres

The visibility of a route also influences route choice, but the number of changes of direction is the key factor. Fuchkina explains why some short routes are rarely used as follows: ‘People save [...] effort, not metres, [...]’ It is also worth noting that wayfinding aids do not show a significant correlation with route choice. However, the results highlight that the building itself is used for orientation, such as room numbers or stairwell labels. People encountering the GW2 for the first time therefore tend to use maps for orientation.

For Fuchkina, the practical value of the study lies less in any single finding than in the methodology behind it. The more accurately movements within buildings can be modelled, the earlier a floor plan can be assessed to determine how people will actually use it later on. The results of the study will be presented at the eCAADe conference in September.

In conclusion, looking at the history of the GW2 and Fuchkina’s research, it becomes clear how important it can be – particularly during the planning phase of a building – to take into account how people will later move around within it. For the GW2, these insights have evidently come too late. The building has stood for over 50 years – and no fundamental change is on the horizon. On the contrary: Bremen’s historic preservation authority has come out in favour of listing the university’s central area as a listed building. The GW2 is also part of this ensemble. Whilst the historic preservation authority emphasises its cultural-historical and architectural significance, the university fears that listing could make future refurbishments more difficult and expensive.

Whether the GW2 will actually be listed and how the building might be altered in future remains to be seen. One thing, however, is unlikely to change any time soon: anyone wishing to find their way around the GW2 will still have to find their own way.

Niklas Zarsten and Dilan Aktas are studying German and Biology on the Master of Education programme. This article was produced as part of the seminar ‘Science Communication and Online Journalism in Theory and Practice’ in the summer term of 2026, taught by Dr Andreas Rothenhöfer. The authors felt a connection to the topic because, as students, they had experienced a sense of disorientation in the GW2 and consequently wanted to explore the building and its history in greater depth. They also conducted an interview with Ekaterina Fuchkina, who studied the GW2 as part of her doctoral thesis.

More on this topic:

https://up2date.uni-bremen.de/en/article/damals-das-experiment-grossraumbuero

https://up2date.uni-bremen.de/en/article/back-then-lost-in-gw2-building

https://www.uni-weimar.de/de/architektur-und-urbanistik/professuren/infau/team/person/titel/ekaterina-fuchkina/

The workshop was organized by the editors of metaphorik.de, who, through their respective metaphor seminars held at the universities of Bremen, Bochum, Duisburg-Essen, and Saarbrücken, gathered in Bonn so that students from the four universities could work together on their metaphor and metonymy projects, try their hand at various academic presentation formats, and become familiar with the process of academic publishing (e.g., the peer-review process).

Yannick Lemasson and Lukas Tröps, students from Bremen, took part in the workshop and share their impressions in the following interview.

What was the purpose of the workshop? What was it really about at its core, and what was the goal?

LLukas: “I’ll have to back up a bit. The workshop was organized to mark the 25th anniversary of the online journal ‘metaphorik.de.’”

Yannick: “The idea was for the journal’s editors to offer courses at their respective universities, and for the students in those courses to then come together. We were a course that took an interdisciplinary approach and sought to bridge the gap between linguistics and literary studies. Since the courses had all covered very different topics, there wasn’t a specific ‘goal’ or ‘final product’ set in advance; instead, we were given the freedom to explore our ideas within the groups we formed.”

Lukas: “Although, the ‘end product’ was supposed to be organizing a science slam or creating a poster for a ‘gallery walk’ at the end. So the form was already specified, but not the content.”

So you worked in groups?

Yannick: “Yes, exactly. I think our class had three groups, and there were about 12 of us in total. But there were also classes that were a little bigger or smaller, and each class formed subgroups.”

Were the results presented across all groups?

Lukas: “Yes, basically during the plenary session. The science slams took place on Saturday evening before we headed back, and the posters were displayed the next morning during the ‘Gallery Walk.’ It was organized so that two or three posters were on display at any given time. Before the ‘Gallery Walk,’ there was an ‘elevator pitch’ where we could convince the others to take a close look at our poster during the ‘Gallery Walk.’ After that, the posters could be viewed over three rounds.”

Yannick: “But there was also interaction among the groups. The organizers drew up the schedule in advance and included a phase where we were supposed to give each other feedback. Preparation for the topic within the individual groups didn’t just take place during the workshop—it happened beforehand. You should think about the topic, do a bit of literature research, and maybe even pick out a handful of songs to work with during the workshop. During the feedback phase, this served as a foundation, so we were already able to have a good exchange at that point.”

Did you have a lot of contact with students from other universities?

Lukas: “We’d already been in contact during the workshop, but the evenings and the meals, in particular, took place at the same time.”

Yannick: “Yes, you could tell that people tended to stick to their own groups. But there were also some fun interactions within the workshop. The organizers came up with some great ideas for that, and the atmosphere was really nice. But since there was also a certain amount of ‘pressure to present,’ we were encouraged to work in groups during the day.”

Are the results of your work used or presented in other ways?

Lukas: “Not in my case, because I organized a science slam, so the project only existed through the event itself. Unfortunately, it wasn’t recorded. We wrote a concept, but other than that, there’s no recording or anything like that.”

Yannick: “But those were really cool science slams! And of course, the posters live on. We were a bit undecided about that, though. There was an idea to print them out and display them at all the locations. In principle, we can also use what we worked on in the seminar to write a term paper. And then there’s another really cool thing: There’s going to be an anniversary issue of the “metaphorik.de” journal where we students can also contribute. During the workshop, they explained the peer-review process to us, and we could participate by proposing a potential topic for an article, so that we, as students, would have the opportunity to publish something.”

How do you actually prepare for a science slam?

Lukas: “It was a kind of inspiration. Our topic was the multimodality of metaphors in the Eurovision Song Contest—that is, how metaphors are expressed and brought to life during the stage performance. We struggled for a long time with how to incorporate that into a science slam. We didn’t want to just stand up front and explain the topic. So we found a creative alternative by performing a sort of ‘mini-ESC.’ We selected two songs, and after each one, we offered a brief commentary on the metaphors that were depicted.”

What are you taking away from this experience in terms of your “scientific horizons”? Which topics interested you the most?

Lukas: “Well, I found it really fascinating that we use metaphors frequently—and often unconsciously—and that our thinking is, to some extent, metaphorical. Maybe I’ll be able to analyze metaphors better in the political sphere in the future.”

Yannick: “I got a lot out of the seminar and the workshop. For example, because the peer-review process was explained to us in detail—something students aren’t really familiar with yet, but which can be interesting if you want to pursue a career in academia. I already found metaphors fascinating before, but now I’ve gained a whole new perspective on them. You come to appreciate metaphors in a completely different way.”

What do you personally take away from the workshop, aside from the technical, academic context?

Lukas: “Maybe there should be more events like this.” (laughs)

Yannick: “Yeah, I was about to say that, on a personal level, I didn’t really take much away from it, but that’s not true at all. It was the first overnight field trip I’ve been on since I started college, and it was definitely a special experience! Even though the students from the different universities didn’t really mix that much, we still got to know the students from the University of Bremen in a different way. And spending the evenings together was also a nice way to get to know each other even better. We may study together, but in the seminar room, we’re on a different level than we are on a field trip.”

Did you know at the start of the seminar that you would be participating in the workshop?

Lukas: “Yes, exactly—we also signed up early and made a binding commitment. And in the end, the costs were covered in full, so we didn’t have to pay anything extra. And thanks to the semester pass, we even had the option to travel there for free. Although that could get a bit bumpy at times.”

Oh, so you came here on local trains?

Yannick: “Yeah, exactly—on the way back, we missed all our connections.” (laughs)

What stood out to you as particularly special and what makes this workshop unique?

Lukas: “I’d say this ‘Science Slam’ format was very experimental, and I’d never experienced anything like it at college before. In my opinion, it was really cool.”

Yannick: “And it’s great to see how creative our fellow students are, as well as students from other universities. Especially the people who put on the Science Slams—that was really great to watch! And everyone approached it and executed it in their own unique way.”