This is the path
I have walked it many times and I usually dedicate some time to thinking about it because of a book I own. It's called “A Pattern language.”
This is the book
I found it on a list of popular and recommended architecture and design books, and I recommend it as well. It approaches the design of towns, buildings and construction in terms of universally desirable patterns that it strives to define. That's universally desirable to people everywhere. These range from larger patterns, like city layout, to smaller patterns. So, for an example of a small pattern, it identified that people universally like sunlight to cross their kitchen counter. Interesting.
A review on the back cover.
I believe this to be perhaps the most important book on architegctural design published this century. Every library, every school, every environmental action group, every architect, and every first-year student should have a copy.
Tony Ward, Architectural Design
Back to our path... What jogs my memory, as you might expect, is the section on paths and goals.
The layout of paths will seem right and comfortable only when it is compatible with the process of walking. And the process of walking is far more subtle than one might imagine.
This isn't just about cutting corners. When we walk, we naturally set goals in the distance to walk towards. If we can't see our destination, let's say the high school down the street, we set intermediate goals and walk more or less towards them in a straight line. So at this point, the paved path no longer goes where we want and we walk straight ahead. We can see the path goes to the next street.
Now, if our goal is some distance away, there will be other intermediate goals we choose roughly every 90 m (100 yards). As we reach each goal, we choose the next. Setting these goals and mindlessly walking towards them, allows us to occupy our mind with other things.
Off we go, and we are not maliciously avoiding the beautiful paved path that city designers gave us...
... which is right over there, not 6 m (roughly 20 ft) to our left. And this is when I ask what they were thinking? Even when you know the main path is there, nobody wants to walk an unlit path shielded by that natural border at night -- and our city is not dangerous.
And here is the path at the other end. (Looks like they dug up the rose bed.) The same problem exists at this end where you can't tell that the paved path will take you in the direction you want to go.
The paved path through the trees is beautiful but if you want people to follow a path, you must design it with knowledge of the subtleties of how people walk.
References
A Pattern Language - Wikipedia
A Pattern Language - Goodreads
Images
Photos from the iPad of @kansuze in Kanata, Ontario, Canada.
Enjoy!
@kansuze