the structure of vagueness
To waste time before school starts to kick in, I’m reading TransUrbanism, and thus naturally jumped right to the first chapter with Lars’ name in the byline, ‘The Structure of Vagueness’. He actually starts off with the same historical architecture references that he uses in our studio proposal (Transurbanism published in 2002, studio proposal written in 2008, respectively). But at least now I understand the pretense better, the references being Antonio Gaudi (Sagrada Familia) and Frei Otto (Institute for Lightweight Structures). 
Apparently, they both deal with ‘materials that can process forces by transformation’.
He experimented with this idea through a studio at Columbia that used the “wool water technique” to ‘calculate the shape of city patterns’ with a merging and bifurcating geometry. (I’m sure all my CP friends/professors would flip right about now – what? using threads to determine the lay out cities?!). I’ll post some scans showing the results of this process later, but basically, what emerges is a not a highly formalized, axial based grid like Paris, Rome or DC, but a “vague order” (with still connecting street blocks, thank goodness) that more resembles an Olmstead-ish Ansley Park. Lars’ names this new experiment “soft rigidity” instead of the “frozen rigidity” of angular geometry past. Thus the voids become the definition of space, rather than the strict and forceful axial roadways.
This is not really a novel idea. Maybe in architecture used to form buildings, but forming a city structure around public space isn’t a new concept. But then he goes on to mess with the architect’s historical penchant for unprogrammed ‘open space’. We all know, through many, many, many poor examples in urban planning, that unplanned, unprogrammed open spaces go vacant, eventually to become derelict and menaces to their surroundings. But the article here seems to suggest that if we just rename this space, we’ll solve the social, political, economic, and psycological problems humans encounter while moving through and trying to operate in it. He suggests,
We must replace the passive flexibility of neutrality with an active flexibility of vagueness.
Uh huh. The theory goes that if neutrality merely allows for formal and informal conduct, vagueness actually relates them. In a vague building, this is named structural Situationism, purposely allowing for derives (woohoo Libero!) as structural properties. If events/spaces/structure is precisely unplanned, that is now ok, because “the structure will engage itself in the ways decisions are made”. The theory opposes Mies’ empty openness and encourages solid vagueness.
Right.
What is actually, psychologically wrONG with these people?