I discovered the concept of desire paths in college and found it very interesting at the time. it flips the narrative of "these inconsiderate kids keep walking on the grass!" to "these landscape architects failed to anticipate how students would use the space where they live and work".
If you ever need to find a desire path, for whatever reason, the first place to go is any college campus/quad.
Every corner is cut and all open spaces are crisscrossed with paths.
I remember seeing photos of some university - I can't remember where - that actually ripped up the old paths and paved over the desire paths, to great success.
> I remember seeing photos of some university - I can't remember where - that actually ripped up the old paths and paved over the desire paths, to great success.
And when people do this: it makes the path a bit jarring since you intuitively know it's been designed that way for maximum efficiency and you are being 'played' in this subtle way.
