Desired Shelter

The image of a user-created path, in seeming defiance of authority, across the earth between the concrete, has captured the imagination of many as a metaphor for, variously, anarchism, intuitive design, individual creativity, or the wisdom of crowds. In urban planning, the concept of desire paths can be used when analyzing traffic patterns in any mode of travel. Landscapers sometimes accommodate desire paths by paving them, thereby integrating them into the official path network rather than blocking them. Sometimes, land planners have deliberately left land fully or partially unpathed, waiting to see what desire paths are created, and then paving those areas. In Finland, planners are known to visit parks immediately after the first snowfall, when the existing paths are not visible. People naturally choose desire paths, clearly marked by their footprints, which can then be used to guide the routing of new purpose-built paths. The definition of a desire path is a path created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall traffic. The use over time". The path usually represent the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. Width and erosion severity can be indicators of how much traffic a path receives. Desire paths emerge as shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, have gaps, or are non-existent. In relation to my previous research of the Villa D'este garden, I find desire lines to be interesting. And the phenomenon we have in Bergen “almenning” is sort of a larger scale desire lines that was created to have the shortest way to the water and to prevent a fire from spreading. And desire lines share similarities with water. Water will always flow downwards, pulled by gravity even if there is no path, as long as there is a constant supply of water, the water will find a way to drain towards a new destination.





To be continued...