We’ve all seen desire paths before, but it wasn’t until recently that I knew their name. They occur in places where the constructed landscaping and walkways don’t reflect the routes people actually want to take. It might be a result of my background as an academic, but I’ve found them to be most ubiquitous at colleges and universities, where designers aren’t always cognizant of the hurry and crowding that results when thousands of students all attempt to change classes simultaneously. (I should probably be proud that a redesign of one of the quads at my alma mater is actually taking previously-developed desire paths into account in its new geometry.)
Today’s shot comes from outside the Valley Life Sciences Building at UC Berkeley; at each corner of the building, the name of one of the life sciences appears in the stonework. I didn’t plan it this way, but was happy to see that the “Psychology” corner was visible over the desire paths: the cause hovering over the effect.
Decaseconds 