Well, it seems as if this design technique has been attributed to just about every university in the country. This has Urban Legend written all over it.
It would surely occur to any architect using this technique that their clients wouldn’t appreciate having to traipse (or, worse yet, roll a wheelchair) across grass and mud because the architect was too stupid to figure out where to lay sidewalks. In modern times, liability considerations alone would make this a very dubious strategy.
Former architect and civil engineering major here. The answer is “both”. Generally you design park spaces in a campus enviroment with paths, focal points, common areas and whatnot right from the beginning. People will have a tendency to follow the defined paths. Now there might be new developments or people might find a shortcut so at some point, you might go in and pave a new path. This happened at my school. There was a dirt trail where people just created a path to wherever. One year we came back and it was all paved.
What the hell is wrong with a dirt trail?
Now someone is gonna have to break new ground.
Something like this would never fly now, or as far back as building permits have been requid. Building plans without sidewalks would never make it past the permit office.