The path towards Modern Urban Renewal

Abstract

Japan has a vast history of earthquake and tsunami disasters that Japan had to cope with, the country can be defined as a disaster society. The most recent disaster, The Great East Japan Earthquake with a magnitude of 9.0, resulted in a tsunami which had a devastating effect on the coastal regions of Tohoku. However, these crisis situations also offer a potential for implementing innovative concepts and strategies regarding disaster recovery. Japan copes with high volumes of precipitation and a rapid aging and declining population. Furthermore, as a result of the shutdown of almost all the nuclear energy plants after the tsunami there is a need for other (renewable) energy sources. It is important to take this trauma into account where most of the people want to recover what was lost. This causes a friction between the urge to develop new areas and recover what was there before, which results in defining the concept of Traditional Urban Recovery (TUR). There is a need for change from Traditional Urban Recovery to a new concept, Modern Urban Renewal (MUR). MUR in the context of Japan is defined as a combination of multiple concepts and topics that are systematically integrated together and strengthened by the community providing balance between water and land. These include four topics: physical living quality, environment, energy, and tsunami resilience. This research project is using the Dynamic Adaptation Policy Pathway (DAPP) approach as guiding method in order to shift from TUR towards MUR or learn how to directly implement MUR after a disaster. In order to strengthen this approach a set of supplementing methods is chosen. One of the supplementing methods used is the multidisciplinary approach. There are many problems in a disaster society such as in Japan which cannot be fully addressed by one scientific discipline. To resolve problems of a disaster society, contributions from many disciplines are needed, with inputs that should preferably be balanced and integrated. Actions that are developed to generate pathways and strategies are derived from the process analysis and spatial analysis. After defining the current situation of Yuriage the developed actions can be added to the pathway map. There are two phases that the strategy will go through: adaptation and resilience. The first phase starts from the current situation of Yuriage where some hard engineered solutions have been applied. the adaptation phase provides a foundation for the shift towards more resilient solutions. In phase two the transition from adaptive solutions towards resilient solutions is supported. Most of the hard engineered solutions are replaced by natural processes. However, in some cases the civil constructions and nature based solutions strengthened each other and were therefore combined to increase resilience. The hypothesis is that following a pathway for each of the four themes from adaptive actions to resilient actions Modern Urban Renewal is reached. The strategy is tested on its performance by translating the pathways in a design proposal for the coastal village Yuriage. The design can be divided into four sections: the coast, the harbor, the housing area, and the energy hub. By using the DAPP approach a set of steps is developed that can be followed in order to reach MUR faster in case of a new disaster situation.