Garden Design – Creating the Right Path

When you are creating paths outside through gardens, etc., or inside by arranging the furniture in your living room, you can choose options that are straighter or more curved.  Should you go with something more grid like or a more meandering option?

Deflected vistas, the fancy name for curving paths, are an important element of biophilic design (biophilic design is discussed in detail here). We are oodles more comfortable in spaces that are biophilically designed than ones that aren’t.   Research shows that whether we’re indoors or outside, in natural or urban settings, we’re more relaxed when on a gently curving path than on a straight route.

We will follow a curving path forward from a place we find pleasant, so if you want people to travel through your home or somewhere else in a particular way, add some gentle turns.

Trips do seem longer when they include more corners and turns, however. They can also make traveling from one place to another confusing, but views to outdoors and landmarks can remedy that.