Cow Paths

Cow Paths

Strategic VS Tactical, I believe one cannot exist without the other.  Tactical architecture is created out of the negative of Strategic architecture.  Therefore we as architects can recognize this relationship between the two methods and design with a method that merges the strategic and the tactical.  University sidewalks are a great example of how we can start to implement a combination of the two.

Cow paths are everywhere on campus.  There is one on the south side of the academic success center here in Clemson. It has become a battle of wills between the students and the maintenance crew on campus.

 

(not the cow path on Campus, Just and Example)

I have heard (but cannot the name) of a school that built all of their buildings and waited a year to pave the sidewalks to see where the students wore down a path in the grass and then came in and paved the sidewalks.  This to me is a combination of the strategic and tactical methods.  The master planners laid out the master plan of the buildings and placed components where they did not want students to walk but then allowed the students to influence the design of the paths based upon their everyday life.

 

This is a simple example of how the strategic and tactical can be combined but once the project is finished the user is going to adapt their space to their everyday life whether you allow for it in your design or not.