Planning: Art, Science or a combination of the two?

"Imagination is more important then knowledge, for knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand" - Albert Einstein

I thought it would be interesting to begin with the above quote by arguably the worlds most renowned scienctist Albert Einstein as I believe it largely focuses on the reading we had this week " Practitioners and the Art of Planning by Eugenie Birch".

This past week in class we discussed and brainstormed on the arguement about planning as an Art or Science. So which is it? With these two areas covering such an extensive range of different values, opinions and even careers it is extremely difficult to highlight planning as one or the other.

In my opinion whenever I think of any aspect of life that involves Art or an Art, I immediately think of imagination. Imagination is the single aspect that drives any Art form, whether it be painting, sculpting or architecture, the list goes on. Whenever a planner is challenged to create something that has not been done before, they are called upon there own imagination do so, they cannot simply rely on past or current knowledge alone to create something that will be unique and well accepted by society. For example the Islands of the world in Dubai, it took imagination and creativity to inspire a man made island like this to become a reality.

However when dealing with planning issues in towns, cities and countries it is almost compulsory that a planner includes the scientific side of things in order for everything to function properly. Without areas like environmental science, which also include chemistry and physics, econonmics and geography being incorporated into a planners ideas societies would not be able to exist as they do today. Without the infrastructure that planners use through science to provide to communities such as communications, healthcare, transportation and renewable energy then these communities would simply be another nice artform to look at.

So in conclusion, I believe that planning is a complex relationship between Art and Science, with one needing the other in order to be successfull. Imagination through Art must be used in order for planners to keep there work interesting, while science must be incorporated to ensure these imaginitive ideas are able to be kept sustainable and liveable.