The Impact of Architectural Organization on Emergency Evacuation Routes in Airport Terminals

Abstract

Mega-scale airport terminals are complex public structures where multi-layered spatial
organization, transfer-based circulation, and heterogeneous user profiles are intertwined. This
study examines the position of the relationship between architectural organization, wayfinding
in times of crisis, and disaster/emergency evacuation in these structures in the literature through
a conceptual-bibliometric design. Two complementary Boolean strings, extended (n = 176)
and focused (n = 76), were run on the Web of Science Core Collection (2019–2026); datasets
were analyzed through VOSviewer at the scientific mapping level. Findings show that the field
concentrates within engineering categories; architectural organization, spatial readability, and
decision-point concepts do not form an independent thematic cluster. The three-level research
gap identified (disciplinary visibility, thematic clustering, contextual intersection) documents
the fragmented representation of architecture in this literature. The study's original conceptual
contribution is the proposal of a dual-mode performance framework read through wayfinding,
decision points, and visual access thresholds.
Keywords: mega-scale airport terminal; architectural organization; wayfinding in crisis;
disaster and emergency evacuation; spatial legibility; bibliometric analysis.