Architects and engineers see wayfinding as a means of doing more than just getting people on the move to their destinations. It can give them something to remember — a sense of where they are. And if they are going to be in a building day after day, as New School students will be once the University Center opens early next year, a mental map can deepen their understanding of their surroundings. And the surroundings are something to see, and to understand. Designed by the New York office of SOM, the building, on Fifth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, looks like two ribbed metal boxes. One is squattish and serves as a seven-story base. The other box, taller and more rectangular, rises from within the first box and contains a nine-story dormitory.