Dana Lake '23
Editor-in-Chief
Note from the Editor: Scott Meacham ’04 was the Editor-in-Chief of the Law Weekly for the 03-04 editions. As EIC he expanded the Law Weekly’s online presence, setting the groundwork for what would become the lawweekly.org you know, love, and read during class. A lifelong lover of architecture and urban design, he earned his Master’s in Architectural History at the same time as his JD. After graduating from the Law School, Meacham went on to work with the National Legal Research Group here in Charlottesville, before working as a legislative attorney for the General Assembly. He served both the House and Senate Natural Resource Committees. Meacham passed away from pancreatic cancer this last January, leaving behind a wife and daughter. We have republished our favorite piece of his here (unedited) for you to enjoy, first published in edition 55.23, April 4 2003.
It's not a metaphor; it’s a literal command. You need to stop walking exclusively on the pavement, obeying the wooden stakes and their little ropes scattered around the Law Grounds. Strike out across the grassy expanses of Spies Garden and the Green Lawn. Try taking the shortest route between two points. Soon, a footpath will emerge.
Look at the great urban and collegiate spaces of this country—Boston Common, the Dartmouth Green, Harvard Yard. Each is crisscrossed with a network of footpaths that is perfectly suited to moving residents to all the places they want to go; yet few of these paths are the products of a planner or an architect who sat down with blueprints and cost estimates. When you see a shortcut—an unpaved, irregular path—you know exactly what the person who created it had in mind. I had a professor who called these good, fast paths “Lines of Desire.” Perhaps a path shows what people aren’tthinking as well—real paths are instinctual, primal, and biologically efficient. These paths grow out of real people’s actions, sort of a common law of foot transportation as compared to statutes that the architects lay down in concrete. Real paths, while ungoverned, are not unordered.
UVA seems to have few such paths. Now that most historic uses have departed Jefferson’s Lawn, leaving the center of the campus as a hole in the doughnut of University activity, the small numbers of hurrying students that remain fail to create a vibrant network. The absence of paths at the Law School is striking as well, but easier to explain since the School was created after the advent of concrete and the professional architect. One surely cannot blame the docility of law students—are we so easily corralled by ropes and pavement and the threat of reprimand that we can’t crumple a blade of grass in order to get to class quicker?
Once enough people disobey the ropes, something permanent will emerge. A set of nice paths crossing Spies Garden diagonally in a variety of directions will appear. The quickest way to get from the north end of Slaughter to the library is through the center of Spies, and the shortest route from the faculty parking lot to Brown is across the Green Lawn—and students will express this with their feet. Because people will naturally stick to a few routes once they emerge, this new set of paths will not destroy the precious lawns of the Law School’s two outdoor spaces. Instead, a lattice of living walkways that represents the denizens of the law school will emerge, enlivening the campus.
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