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Get rid of unsightly mud paths on campus
By G. Christopher Terry
October 1, 2007 | Boy, if there is one thing that really
grinds our gears, it is the boneheaded shortsightedness
of the landscape architecture / environmental planning
firm USU seems to hire for every radical landscaping
project it undertakes on campus.
The new library and the Champ Drive re-imagination
are merely the most recent examples of supposedly professional
LA/E planners plopping down lush swards of green grass
peppered with baby saplings precisely where students
want to walk. Then, months later, after an ragged muddy
furrow has been slashed across the grass by thousands
of students' feet, USU grounds maintenance puts up "keep
off the grass" signs on metal posts. Ooooh, don't scare
us.
Let's get down to the brass tacks of reality. Students
are a rationally self-interested group, with a strong
emphasis on the self-interest. If we are late for class,
or even if we just want to check our e-mail, we are
not going to walk all the way around this annoying little
concession to green space on campus just because some
jerk in an office somewhere said so.
Roberto Leo, a senior majoring in LA/EP here at Utah
State, said adaptive solutions to the muddy problem
could be integrated into the landscape of our campus
as design elements. A network of curving cobblestone
walkways would surely be more aesthetically pleasing
than a spiderweb of angry ruts. It would keep student's
shoes looking correct, too.
"The main reason of design is where people walk,"
Leo said. He also said stone or pebble paths "could
be used as a form of design, definitely."
So there you have it, straight from an expert. I am
as certain that Leo is correct as I am that the grounds
crews are sick and tired of closing off marred lawns
with rebar stakes and string. One solid summer of work
would give our campus a direly needed facelift, and
put a stop to the battle of wills between students who
use the campus every day and landscape planners who
are divorced from reality.
Leo said landscape architecture does not exist in
a vacuum. "If you guys as students go to them and say
they should throw in a design element because people
are walking there, they could implement that."
Well put.
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