The purpose of this paper is to clarify an actual condition and to examine a possibility of private organization for area<br>planning in a city center through a case study of "Yokohama Machidukuri Club". We focused about basic philosophy<br>of the organization and analyzed an actual condition from outline, action and process in terms of "organization" and "place". The following thing was shown as a result. 1) An organization which has a "place" can establish a<br>partnership between various people and sectors after strengthening a relationship. 2) For the organization, continual<br>small activities are important to be known the presence and to cooperate with other organizations.

In Town Center Revitalization Law (1998), a basic plan for town center revitalization and a town management plan shall be consistent with the basic policies established by the national government. However, whether these plans are really consistent with these nation policies has not yet been examined. This study, focusing on the case of Kurume, Fukuoka, aims to (1) analyze if these plans are consistent with the nation basic policies and (2) to clarify problems of these plans, the national basic policies and relationships between these plans and policies. The paper discloses (1) 14 commercial revitalization projects in these plans are beyond the scope of the national policies and (2) Planning committee members of the town center revitalization plan did not join the planning committee for the town management plan.

For the past decades of years, an informal kind of city space similar to the slum comes to arise during China's rapid urbanization. That kind of city space is called "Cheng Zhong Cun" in Mandarin (village inside city). This kind of special district inside a city is being criticized as tumors of the city for its terrible dwelling conditions, severe lack of communal facilities and infrastructure, high building density, and public security problems; on the other hand, it offers a living place for lower income population, which is mainly composed of rural migrant workers. Discussion and research surrounding "the village inside city" become more and more a new focus in China for recent years. My research purposes are to investigate this phenomenon, clarify the reasons for its appearance, and identify its characteristics.

This is a quick report of a questionnaire to local authorities carried out by Building Research Institute in February 2009. It investigates the current situation concerning maps and information about buildings. In this survey, we got a lot of answers from local authorities and grasped the latest situation of geospatial data.

The authors investigated the building damage conditions in five areas of Galle, Matara, and Hambantota, Sri Lanka after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. This paper presents tsunami vulnerability functions for the buildings in the country as a relationship between building damage and inundation. In order to develop the functions, 1,535 building damage data in terms of structural types, solid (mainly reinforced concrete) and non-solid (masonry and timber-frame), and inundation height data of 153 points obtained by the field survey and contour models were examined. The developed fragility curves show structural differences clearly and it will be useful for damage estimation to reduce tsunami damage in the future.

This paper aims to clarify continuous participation of university lab. members on community development project named Maitamon Project which has been achieved on collaboration between university and local community. The results as follows; 1) The promotion system of lab. member is composed of the generalization section by graduate student/researcher, the CG making section by graduate student/researcher and the modeling and researching section by graduate student/undergraduate student. 2) Contents of work are the CG making and the modeling and the material to rouse the image to local community. 3) Method of participation of undergraduate student/graduate student who changes place in a few years supports mentioned promotion system.

This is a quick report of a questionnaire to municiparites carried out by Building Research Institute in Octorber 2008. It investigates current conditions concerning information for urban planning. In this questionnaire, we got a lot of answers from municiparites and grasped the latest condition about city planning survey by municiparites.

This study reviewed the activities of the voluntary organization for disaster prevention (VODP), and the history and the social background in three coastal communities in Tanabe City. It was clarified that the activities and approach on disaster prevention was different depending on the communities which are formed in the same coastal area close to each other. Taking this result, interview survey was conducted at one community where the disaster prevention activity is not done. Result showed that this community has a " local capacity" against disaster prevention since experience has been handed down and established good relationships among neighborhood through daily life and traditional summer festival.

People in Shirakawa village spend an effort to maintain this traditional house which is vulnerable to fire. This study aims to document daily community activities, and clarify its mechanism and people's awareness. Maintenance of water supply system, community patrol for fires four times a day, participation in the fire fighting group were done. It was confirmed that disaster management activities were continued with "District" and "Block". Moreover, disaster awareness had been highly maintained because the residents actively participated in the activities.