INCOMPLETE PLANNING

... is a process, but not one of

incrementalism nor equilibrium,
nor an arrival at a “settled” ideal
state. It utilises theories not
as models but simply as tools
for experimentations. It admits
conflicts and proceeds with strife as
productive. It produces potentials,
even indescribable ones, to expand a
plan’s spatial-conceptual territories.

W e are apt at planning the incomplete as

a finished product. Seldom do we ask
M ake theory be in a flight
from itself ! To collaborate and discuss, contact FOONG P. CHAN
posing.urbanite@gmail.com
patrickfoong.chan@gmail.com

what constitutes “Incomplete Planning”.

Theorising the city is
experimenting with drawing new
Instead, here are a few points to enable
relations amongst the physical,

W hat if some force was to steal into

our minds and ask: Would we dare
H ow does a plan embrace the
emergence of indescribable
communities and territories?
incompleteness:

• An Incomplete Plan is not a masterplan’s

socio-economic, conceptual,
geological, historical and spatial
to devise a plan which inscribes its own inverse, espousing an opposite standard.
forces vested in a given project’s
borders. Here, theory is not A city’s interiority (or middle) is always
out of joint with itself. This condtion

Completing the Incomplete

undoing, again and again? This contradiction can be • An Incomplete Plan pierces a masterplan’s
anterior to what is conventionally requires another mode of planning. As
Again and Again, A Joy

temporarily suspended if a plan’s well-composed layers and unsettles them into

called “practice”; practice is not such, even a map drawn to the minutest

What can Theory do?

“Again and again” affirms a constant motion body and function is recast as a “disassemblies” bearing unchartable potentials.
subjugated to the theoretical model. details does not represent a city’s

In Medias Where?
of bundling different sets of texts, imagery palimpsest that challenges the • An Incomplete Plan picks up these
interiority – its missing middle. Even the
and sounds, without tending to perfection. permanence of urban policies, but disassemblies, joins them with other things -
What can theory do? Michel future splinters from itself.
Palimpsest

At each recurrence, to craft new values not discarding them altogether. make new connections that can become tools,
Foucault and Gilles Deleuze
and more importantly valuation systems. diagrams and platforms for the emergence of
suggested this: We need a kind of para-planning
Invention of new ethics rather than abiding This palimpsest breaks fissures in new subjectivities, spaces, voices and ethics.
contraptions to begin to articulate a city’s
by common social mores. the masterplan’s well-tempered • An Incomplete Plan is a movement of both
A theory is exactly like a box of missing middle: Kinetic machines... etc. We
strata to decompose official values, materials and concepts, more than a guarded
tools. It has nothing to do with articulate, and not represent. Articulations
There is joy in inventing again and again. policies and typologies. Broken-up set of principles and objects. It is a tool.
the signifier. It must be useful. It involves crafting new paths rather than just
It is a joy emerging from experiments strata marry alien concepts and • An Incomplete Plan transforms itself as it
must function. And not for itself. relying on a referenced original. We map to
leading to creations: philopoiesis. It is a raw forces, and these unions lay interacts and transforms with the masterplan.
make movement.
joy of acting by one’s own accord, rather the platform from which those yet- The masterplan is a worthy adversary.
Theory is like a hammer. It is
than satisfying some urban-metrics, molds described territories and peoples
not a model, but a particular “In the middle of where?” is not a lack
or schemes. Joyfulness may be said to be may potentially take place. ... is at best an amorphous gathering of
gathering of materials and or a negative-space. Its presence is its
being in a situation where the forces abound disjointed and contradictory texts, images,
conditions (e.g. metal that is potentialities.
lead to creation of new relations, then new In-completing the masterplan, the activities and sounds. The contradictions and
heavy enough to swing forcefully)
concepts, peoples and spaces. palimpsest presses the masterplan’s disjoints do not just express the strife present
to create other new things.
ethical form to in-completion. today, but embodies the conflictual forces
necessary to spur the emergence of future
But more than making other new
peoples and spaces couched in difference.
things, theory is in a flight from
itself in that it remakes its own
The incomplete plan is complete insofar as
groupings of concepts. ...always
constant movement is its very form.
tasked with is own in-completion.

A love of fate is to embark on many returns, each time a new instance. In tracing layered territories, enclosures and interiors are just passages Subterranean forces pierce the well-composed layers of a master(narrative) Points, concepts proliferate. One may even curate things. But it is to recognise between even just Centres, middles and interiors are distributed
It is a matter of returning to creation; an art of transfiguration which movements habe slowed down plan, unsettling territories to build platforms for new territories to form. two points there can be many points, tones, rising and falling tones, concepts as a glissando not between points, but vibrating fields

LAST UPDATE: 2019-06-27-16:35