How to kill an elephant path
The last step of a neverending story (see previous episode here and when it all started). The tagline for this would be “how to kill a an unofficial route, a path that is formed in space by people making their own shortcuts“
July 2006:
February 2007:
January 2008:
(the last picture shows the sign that say “please take care of the lawn, don’t cross it please”)
Why do I blog this? this is one of the most interesting aspect of urban life, how people’s intents materialize (’desire lines’ as one of the comment on my Flickr picture says) and how this is prevented by others forces. In this case, it’s “to protect the lawn”, which is a quite intriguing reason.
In addition, other things to think about: what’s more efficient? the barriers or the warning sign? why isn’t there any other elephant path starting on the other side (where there is no sign)? is it because you just get out of the building and it’s acceptable to take a longer path?
January 23rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Je viens d’apprendre que le “chemin de l’âne” est pour les anglophones the “elephant path”. Cocasses visions zoologiques !
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
why not just create a nice footpath where the ‘elephant path’ was dug up in the first place,
based on the natural behaviour of the ‘elephants’?
could have been a lovely solution.
shouldn’t design be inclusive as opposed to exclusive?
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
It’s funny to see that. I remember a story my grandfather told me once. He was the head of a social housing office in the north of France, and he had to supervise building projects in various suburban area.
In one of their projects, they settled the buildings and didn’t mark any path in the surrounding gardens, and they used the elephant path to determine how to settle the most effective pavements for the inhabitants. It was quite obvious, but your example shows that it is not the case everywhere.
January 23rd, 2008 at 6:12 pm
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January 27th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
That looks like democracy in action to me - talk about ‘voting with your feet’
February 12th, 2008 at 8:48 am
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February 17th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
My ex-father-in-law used to run the physical facilities department for a small college. Whenever they built/opened a new building they would build the paths the architects wanted, but after a year or so, he would add paths where people actually walked! In a way what this building did is so against the “2.0″ movement, and what my ex-f-i-l did was very customer service oriented.
April 23rd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
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April 26th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
[…] is somewhat related to the elephant path (desire line) I often blog about here and there as pointed out by Space and Culture. A desire line can be turned into a design opportunity and thus […]