Trust the Rut

When I’m on my daily run, I frequently get frustrated that the trail doesn’t go where I want it to. Sometimes the paved path overshoots a crossroad and then backtracks instead of taking the shortest route.

Often I wonder, “Why not just put the trail right there? It’s obvious from the ruts in the ground that’s where people want to go!”

While I’m sure code or accessibility requirements sometimes prevent the path from taking the direct route, more often, it seems that planners made incorrect predictions.

Evidently, students at Michigan State University don’t share this problem.

At MSU, campus planners don’t pave new sidewalks immediately in new areas. They wait until there are paths in the grass showing the routes that students naturally want to take. Then, workers pave the permanent walks accordingly.

I know someone who is building a house in New Zealand unlike any I’ve ever seen.

The entire thing is going to consist of just three rooms — three completely empty rooms. The bare boxes have heat and air conditioning, but that’s it. No bathroom. No kitchen. No furniture.

He was inspired by the book "How Buildings Learn" which says, “All buildings are predictions, and all predictions are wrong."

The idea is that as he lives in the space he will intuitively know where things should go and add as needed. He’ll also discover what he actually needs since he’s starting with a blank space — tabula rasa.

While this is an extreme approach, it makes me wonder about just how many things I do simply because they are the default.

I’m curious how many of those defaults are simply the result of someone else’s prediction.