Least Resistance: How Desire Paths Can Lead to Better Design

99percentinvisible.org

54 pointsx43b4 comments

Relatedly, the courtyard outside the Stata Center at MIT has several bizarre, intersecting sidewalks that cover all of the common paths that people traverse: http://imgur.com/b1BpvlU

I never new that these had a name; when I was an MIT student we simply referred to them as "nerd paths".

The interior of the student union building at IIT was famously designed around these. The site was previously an empty field, and the building's main circulation paths are laid out so that you can still walk through the building along the worn down routes cutting across the grass.

https://en.wikiarquitectura.com/index.php/File:MCTC_planta_a...