The Path Most Traveled 💃
#5 Nature vs The Built Environment. A quickie about an observation I made.
From the Curator 😎💻
Yo, What's up! Joseph here
This week was a bit of a long one! I’ve been in the hospital since last Tuesday and didn’t get out until Saturday evening and I’ve been writing this post during all of the free time I’ve had because my daughter was born! Pretty exciting stuff! But with that being said, it’s a short post today and I hope it’s thought-provoking enough.
If you enjoy this issue of Life of a Designer, consider buying me a coffee to show your support!👇
Thought of the Week 💭
You know how I talked about the “dirt path” the other day on this YouTube video? Well after taking this photo I did some research and they are called Desire Paths.
Well here’s a prime example! This is one of the buildings at the hospital. Further back, if you follow the dirt trail is the parking garage where I parked. To get to the main building I only had one real option, walk on the sidewalk off to the left by the surface lot which was unshaded and provided no real benefit for a person. That sidewalk next to the road was fine BUT there was this dirt path.. why is there a dirt path and why doesn’t the sidewalk extend the path? Well…
the garage building exit more closely aligns with this dirt path than the actual sidewalk
This building provides shade and protection provided by the trees and the roof overhang
It’s safer?
This is where the argument between nature vs design/construction/price comes into play. The closest distance from point A to point B is a straight line, we know that from freshman geometry, so why stop the sidewalk in the middle of the building? As the owner, the 20’ stretch of cement slab to finish the sidewalk would probably cost an extra $20K (this is a random number) for a “useless” path. Their thinking is also, why should we add another sidewalk when there’s a perfectly good one off to the left? Now also, because this is a hospital, what about people in wheelchairs? I guess you can partially understand the argument but as designers, we need to remember to design for the people first.
This isn’t to chastise the architects but rather to bring awareness to how architecture changes over time and things we think are best for the client may sometimes differ from what the user needs. Let’s design better architecture for the people, these buildings outlive us after all so why not design for the future. 🚀🏢
Learn more about Desire Paths in this article by the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
From the Socials 📲
Someone really cool that I just came across is Sana from :Scale. She recently published the first issue of Scale Magazine and it follows the theme of Community. The goal of the magazine was
to make sure that architecture students are able to collectively discuss topics and ideas for the built environment.
It’s refreshing to see the student’s point of view on their projects and reading the discussions that I wish I could have been having while in school!
Give it a read and follow her content on Instagram!
Freebie of the Week 🤑👀
This week is a mix of different professions! We’ve got a pro marathoner, chef, doctor, and policeman/crossing guard. Can’t wait to see them in your renders! If you do use them, please tag me and I’d love to feature them on here!
I’ll release a few free graphic assets from my personal library every week and sometimes more! I hope you downloaded the files from last week because they are now gone! DUN DUN DUN!!! Not to worry though, I plan on bringing them back soon. Subscribe to this newsletter and I’ll let you know when you can download all of the assets!
That's all for this week, follow me on Twitter & Instagram 📲
I'll be back next week, same time, same place! 💪🏽