Comments on: East End Desire Paths

By: Vanessa

Vanessa — Sat, 23 Jul 2016 21:00:04 +0000

I loved reading this. For better or worse, I think paths communicate to us. The official path tells you where the officials want you to go, but the foot-trodden path tells you where people really go. I think I often time obey instruction from both. I think it is significant that the desire paths are so neat, though. It is not a mishmash of people just stepping where-ever they want, it is a clear line, an unspoken agreement to follow this new path. What a lovely article.

By: James

James — Sun, 24 Nov 2013 11:46:13 +0000

Desire paths made by meanderthals…….

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 13 May 2013 07:27:19 +0000

I rather like walking along paths that wind along quite crazy routes that seem to have been designed not for their ‘directness’. A grubby and worn path through grass, rose beds etc. and often strew with crisps packets and dog turds is not really that attractive, no matter how much you try to wrap it up as some ‘free spirit’ expression. ‘Desire paths’ are used by people who ‘cut corners’ and are only interested in getting from A – B as quickly as possible. Free spirits? Obviously quite the opposite!

By: Tom Lonsdale

Tom Lonsdale — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 09:30:49 +0000

I am a Landscape Architect, brought to this page by the Landscape Institute newsletter, but I hail from the unruly North, so have a view from both sides. I was reared and indoctrinated by a father who saw a sign saying “road unsuitable for motor vehicles” as a reliable indication that driving along it would bring rewards – which they invariably did on our family outings.

It saddens me that so few designers of path networks (most not Landscape Architects) fail to invest sufficient time and attention to mapping destinations and departure points in the neighbourhood surrounding their site to predict where the main desire routes will occur. That is not to say that designed paths should slavishly follow all desire routes but it is wise to provide sound footing and durability along the most important strategic lines.

Any attempt to deviate people from a straight line between departure point and target destination needs to be reinforced with insurmountable obstacles and, if anger in the walker is to be avoided, some delightful reward provided en route to compensate. Achieve that and your job as designer is generally sound but our duty is to accommodate desire and equip the landscape to endure it (unlike the naively placed rose-bed) but not to confine and constrain the free spirit in us all as it fights to survive the Orwellian regime creeping up on us.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 09:11:00 +0000

I’ve always thought that there’s an argument for designing a park without paths and seeing where they appear before formalising them but I love the idea that the desire line in one photo was appropriated by Landscape Architects and the suggestion that desire lines should be left as informal. I think people like the idea that they have made the space their own by putting their own mark on it. My chief gripe at the moment is Jubilee Gardens. They missed the most basic of desire lines and the beautiful lawn is getting ruined. Ah well.

PS I’m posting this to my Twitter feed, it’s excellent.

By: Bob Osborne

Bob Osborne — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 07:08:03 +0000

As a local authority landscape architect, I think we do try to pick up some of these (we know them as ‘desire lines’) in masterplanning park path improvements , but sometimes they are just too numerous and congested to formalise, or destroy horticultural features because people are just too bloody minded, unaware, impatient or too lazy to walk a few metres further. My sympathies lie with the park staff who create attractive planting schemes on previously rarely traffic’d areas, only to see them disfigured in this way

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:11:42 +0000

If landscape architects and planners take into account desire lines, surely people would, on the basis of these new paths, then create a new set of desire lines and deviations…..

By: Joo

Joo — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 08:15:36 +0000

The theme for this piece is lovely although other conclusions could be made. People will not be contained and follow the regulation path, they naturally want to take the shortest route and that is why the majority of these paths appear. Occasionally we choose to wander and take our time, but not as often. Runners prefer to use grass or dirt track as it is better for the knees and joints, leading to footworn paths alongside formal ones.

When recently in Skye, we had to choose our own paths when walking the hills as there were few managed trails. At some points we followed the tracks that highland cattle had made through decades of tramping through wild hillside for grazing. There are few fences and they are essentially left to wander huge areas of cliff top, stoney beach and stream. It made me wonder why they had chosen the paths they had taken? Was it random or were they just taken the shortest route as well?

By: Julia

Julia — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 17:49:32 +0000

I may be a lone dissenting voice, though I’m not averse to the odd act of rebellion against the status quo, but I wept with sorrow when I first noticed people tramping through the rose-bed in Bethnal Green gardens and damaging the rose bushes. It’s true the beds were not as well maintained as they had once been (these bushes were glorious in their heyday), but that does not excuse causing such destruction, so all that is left is the stumps of the bushes peeping out of hard flattened earth. This is not the act of residents hungry for literature…

By: silver price

silver price — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 23:47:09 +0000

The version I heard was that, at my alma mater, Northwestern, which has severe Chicago lake-effect winters, they were going to lay steam pipes between buildings. They waited an extra winter so they could see where the desire paths were between the buildings, then laid the pipes there, and put the sidewalks over the pipes. The heat from the pipes kept the sidewalks clear thru the winters.