Design for Social Regeneration After Mass Disaster: Researching Solutions for Immediate and Longer-term Needs

<p dir="ltr">Mass disasters occur rarely, but when they do — depending on how well local level preparedness and response systems are integrated — their aftermath changes the fortunes of a city and its people. More<br>so, post-disaster recovery process can affect the identity, culture and social organisation of a city or town as its government and businesses rush towards reconstructing quickly to help restart the local economy. However, as this research finds, mass disasters also offer opportunities for social regeneration (see <i>Chapter 1</i> and <i>Chapter 4</i>); to fix long- standing and underlying problems, such as to strengthen communities, reinvent local values and economy, improve integration between different groups of people, create new landuse arrangements, and develop collective governance and decision-making capability (see <i>Chapter 5</i>).</p><p dir="ltr"><br></p><p dir="ltr">Unfortunately, there is little systematic knowledge of how design is used to tackle disaster preparedness, response and recovery. Following the 11th March, 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, Kamaishi has been re-building its community mainly in physical terms — giving social regeneration less priority compared with physical and environmental reconstruction. In addition, very little has been done to recover the community from the psychological and social scars left by the disaster.</p><p dir="ltr">The purpose of this report is in two folds; to identify immediate and longer-term needs in Kamaishi (see <i>Chapter 6</i>), and to then propose design interventions that enable positive change in Kamaishi’s society through building hope, making local connections, and continuous empowering of residents (see <i>Chapter 7</i>). The findings presented here discuss lessons from Kamaishi and identifies multiple opportunities for social regeneration after the 11th March, 2011 disaster.</p>