Cass Architectural Diploma Unit 10 An architecture of relationships II Signy Svalastoga, Jonathan Cook and Edward Simpson
This year we continued to investigate territories in the Miyagi Prefecture of Japan, one of the regions worst hit by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. We established a formal collaboration with Miyagi University and have, with Professor Senhiko Nakata and colleagues, continued to learn from some remarkable post-disaster projects and initiatives, which indicate a shift in planning and urban design thinking and a desire to rethink sustainable living in this part of Japan. Specifically we continued to work in the Nobiru and Miyato Island areas of Higashimatsushima with Shintaro Tsuruoka and Yuko Odaira of the NGO HOPE, and in the neighbouring town of Ishinomaki.
‘I am convinced that the earthquake and tsunami that struck the Tohuku region of Japan on 11 March 2011 provided an opportunity to redress the balance of this social and cultural decline. Tohuku has the richest natural resources of Japan, and was the place where many craftsmen with skills that utilised the natural environment lived and worked. But the Tohuku we saw destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami was not the old Tohuku with which we were familiar. It was not the Tohuku that had been the paradise for craftsmen. Row after row of prefabricated housing units had been assembled from parts made in factories, and people living in these units commuted to work in the cities by car. A lifestyle similar to that of the American
Unit 10, box art
BEN STUART SMITH Landscape plan
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The Cass Session 2014–15