2017 Volume 5 Issue 1 Pages 256-268
This essay is an account from the perspective of a supporting civil engineer and landscape expert on the reconstruction of the Kirikiri district of Otsuchi Town in the Kamihei County of Iwate Prefecture, which was severely damaged by the devastating tsunami triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake. It also reports and on the process and challenges of the town reconstruction planning and spatial design. One defining characteristic of the process in Otsuchi Town is that the local residents were involved from the conceptualization to the specific planning and design of the reconstruction. This urban renewal method, which can also be called a local residents collaboration style, plays an important role in deciding the spatial design of the whole district and in the negotiations with relevant organizations on the national highway and changing the linear shape of the seawalls. The timeline from after the disaster up to fiscal year 2015 divided into four stages in terms of progress in the town reconstruction planning: 1) decisions on the reconstruction plan objectives and collective housing scope; 2) decisions on the structure of the district; 3) decisions on the spatial image of the reconstruction planning; and 4) a detailed study of the public spaces and facilities. I aim to describe the process of the spatial design in each stage and the resulting and relationships while at the same time show a spatial design that could contribute to urban renewal that may be necessary in the future by describing challenges that arose in the process.
