Recovery Period→Regeneration Period→Development Period
“Recovery Period”: Temporary housing, public facilities and other infrastructure are prepared → “Regeneration Period”: Rebuilding according to the same or improved building codes than the pre-disaster → “Development Period”: Strengthening of the intangible resources, and passing on the memories and records about the earthquake.
Tasks change along with social phenomena
Activities of the architectural field are closely linked to social phenomena such as the beginning of temporary housing preparation and the formulation of restoration plans. Their target tasks change.
Emergency response to community development
Many region-specific groups and organizations that were established in the aftermath of the earthquake shifted their purpose from emergency relief activities to being leading figures in community development.
Starts right after the disaster, reaches completion in several years
Most projects started right after the earthquake. Buildings were completed beginning 3~4 years after the earthquake.
Goals change with time
Facilities that are needed to teach about and prepare people for disasters change from initially being facilities that preserve the scars of a disaster, to communication facilities, to research and experiments facilities, to facilities that prepare for disasters
Architecture and related fields face the issue of rebuilding large-scale cities in the process of reconstruction after a major disaster. Since it takes several years from planning to completion of architectural and urban developments, emergency relief efforts for “building shelters” for people to restore their lives are required. Long, medium and short term projects, such as development projects, emergency efforts and various events and meetings, are overlaid in the mapping of the creative activities of the architecture field during the recovery period. Most projects started right after the disaster, so individual project plots indicate not the starting point but the midpoint or finishing point.
Activities of the architecture field included not only architectural designing and urban development, but also town planning involving the locals, such as preparation of community support, civic forums and the community council etc.
The people of the community, who use the buildings and live in the city, are not only the beneficiaries of the creators’ and designers’ aid, but they themselves are important creators during the recovery period.
The timeline demonstrates how various seemingly independent civic groups and expert forums coexisted, and shows us the possibilities of mutual information sharing and networking among the different activities.
It is important to understand how the body of independent individuals agreed, debated and achieved in their respective fields, without merging into a large group.
It does not necessarily mean that we already achieved our ideal goal just because the timeline ends here.
The actual timeline goes on. A better future lies ahead.