Green Planning + Regional Planning
For over thirty five years, I have engaged in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Green Building Rating System, Environmental Analysis, Land-use Analysis/Site Evaluation, Feasibility Studies, Urban Planning/Design, Conceptual Design, Programming/Space Planning, Master Planning, and all architectural services for corporate, governmental, institutional, housing, and mixed-use commercial developments in both the public and private sectors, with a diversified architectural practice.
Consequently, I have concentrated efforts on client satisfaction through projects that not only set the standard for excellence in design, but also serve as catalysts for human environment, culture, and region. Included in the great diversity of architectural practice that I have explored is an extensive collection of Environment and Region. Moreover, my focus on Environment reflects a personal interest in critical social issues and commitment to community concerns in the region, related to today’s” Eco-City,” “Compact City,” or “Regional City” by Benton MacKaye.
I have explored my writing the dissertation in Regional Planning, investigating Benton MacKaye’s regional philosophy of the United States in 1920s. I feel that it is crucial for today’s architects and planners to realize the need in achieving a sustainable development design as well as LEED and Green Building. As the global environmental crisis, with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation which is called “Green,” the “Green Revolution” or “Geo-Greenism” by Bento MacKaye is needed to harness the forces for the good of the planet and our economy has yet to ignite. The Energy Technology (ET) revolution will be both transformative and disruptive, setting out the clean-technology breakthroughs we, and the world, will need.
Today, in an architectual profession, Green Building(or a sustainable building) is an outcome of a design philosophy which focuses on increasing the efficiency of resource use — energy, water, and materials — while reducing building impacts on human health and the environment during the building’s lifecycle, through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal. The LEED and Green Building Rating System, developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. Subsequently, I have published the result of my research for several national and international conferences and presented the research papers in Japan and the United States for last several years.
Furthermore, my completing a Ph.D. allows me to explore many different conceptual directions plus research and study refinement. However, one of my new directions is to devote myself to Architectural Education, and enthusiastically teach architectural practice and theory with Environmental issues: LEED and Green Building.
Region and Environment – Benton MacKaye’s vision
Today the 21st century is in the age of globalization and interdependence. In that context, my Ph.D. dissertation is an investigation of Urban Design which addresses Regionalism from a Benton MacKaye’s point of view in the United States, specifically focusing upon Environment in the early 20th century. My research focus on the past fifteen years has been on how to challenge for a higher quality of life and a more harmonious environment, especially in the total system of Society.
Benton MacKaye (1879-1975) was a conservationist, a regional planner, an originator of the Appalachian Trail, and a cofounder of the Wilderness Society, and in linking the concepts of preservation and recreation. MacKaye is very well one of the most influential 20th-century American environmentalists. Spanning three-quarters of a century, his long and productive career had a major impact on emerging movements in conservation, environmentalism, and regional planning. His seminal ideas on outdoor recreation, wilderness protection, land-use planning, community development, and transportation have inspired generations of activists, professionals, and adventurers seeking to strike a harmonious balance between human need and the natural environment. In the early 1900s, MacKaye was already worried about increasing numbers of motorists invading those wild spaces, particularly into the region's mountainous areas.
Benton MacKaye（Source: Rauner Special Collections Library at Dartmouth College）Drawing extensive research, I have traced MacKaye’s extensive career, examined his many published works, and described the importance of his relationships with such influential figures as Lewis Mumford, Clarence Stein, and Aldo Leopold. As a result, through his philosophy, I have learned that MacKaye explored the problem of how to use the natural and cultural resources we have at handy today without defacing the landscape, polluting the atmosphere, disrupting the complex associations of animal and plant species upon which all higher life depends, and thus in the end destroying the possibilities for further human development. Unfortunately MacKaye’s voice was not listened in 1920s, but it is needed even more today, as it is a new era in the 21st century. We who consider ourselves environmentalists today find his voice still striking an inner chord.
To conclude, as an oriental cosmopolitan as well as an architectural practitioner and educator, I am mostly delighted to mention that I live in two worlds where I think I am able to see and appreciate many wonderful things that the societies of both
the East and the West
can offer, throughout the prospective professional education and practice.
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The Methodology of Cultural and Regional Planning with Environmental Conservation:
A new vision of Tohoku – What we can learn from The Tohoku Earthquake of Japan
Takazi Okuda
Professor, School of Architecture, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
Professional Advisory Professor, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, Korea
Abstract
After field investigations into an environmental, vernacular, and cultural base for the devastated areas hit by The Tohoku Earthquake in Japan, 2011, this paper focuses primarily on the methodology of cultural and regional planning with environmental issue and vernacular culture in a workshop. Tohoku is historically important to understanding the role of “Satoyama-Satoumi” and “Chinju-no-mori,” especially as the indigenous environment of it, and recognizing its crucial relationship to nature in Japan. The paper briefly analyzes the perceptions of primary theories for a case study, and discusses the interpretation of cultural landscapes along the coastline in Tohoku, while touching upon the new vision of Tohoku based on vernacular culture, that makes Tohoku reconstruct with a Japanese icon and an object of cultural nostalgia–as a symbolic “Tohoku region.”
1. Introduction
On March 11, 2011, The Tohoku Earthquake, also known as “The Great East Japan Earthquake,” which measured magnitude-9.0 on the open-ended Richter scale, was the most powerful known earthquake to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world overall since modern record-keeping began in 1900. There is the heartbreaking human story, as the earthquake brought destruction along the Pacific coastline of Japan’s northern island and resulted in the loss of approximately 30,000 of lives and devastated entire towns and villages.
Indeed, the Japanese rose from ashes of the defeat in 1945 using the fundamental strength to secure a remarkable recovery and the country’s present prosperity, but the most serious impact on Japan is these disasters recently and there is also a very big impact physically and mentally. For instance, before and after the earthquake disaster, we realized that the nuclear power was safe but not anymore now, and it was a dream of owning a house before, but the increase in risk by owned it is actually. Thus, the values were changed by the disasters. The values may be changed: the reality is not actually changed, and reality has not changed anything. In other words, the world has changed, not only realized the reality.
Figure 1. Devastated entire towns and villages by The Tohoku Earthquake
2. Primary objectives of a workshop
The paper based on the lecture notes of “Cultural and Regional Planning with Environmental Conservation” in The Chungnam National University School of Architecture, Daejeon, South Korea. Last three years provided the author the great opportunity to teach wide ranging workshops/seminars of this type to contribute to students’ understanding of regional planning with urban, social, and environmental issues as well as cultural planning. Through a combination of lectures, workshops, seminars, and case studies of existing regional fabrics, the students study cultural and regional planning in the Tohoku region as well as Korea, EU, and the United States.
As per the methodology of cultural and regional planning, the workshop consists of four phases as follows:
- Phase I – Research/analysis: analysis of The Tohoku Earthquake.
- Phase II – Schematic planning: theory and philosophy of regional, cultural, environmental, and conservational planning + green energy.
- Phase III – Working session: case studies in Tohoku + Korea, EU, and U.S.
- Phase IV – Final proposal: a new vision of Tohoku.
3. Methodology of cultural and regional planning: Strategies of each phase for a workshop
- Phase I: Research/analysis – Analysis of The Tohoku Earthquake
- As conducting preliminary research/analysis, the objective of Phase I is to define the forces at play on a city by analyzing an existing regional area, and document the area of a city in words, drawings, maps, and photographs as follows:
- Describe the content of a case study in terms of regional, environmental, and cultural issues, and associated system for the final proposal.
- Gather information on the Tohoku region
- Photographic survey
- Explore a city – as photograph parts of a city, try to answer the following questions in both words and photographs that may be uncovered additional issues if applied to a case study: Overall city forms, Mid-scale city forms, Cultural form-givers
- Regional analyses
Figure 2. Gathering information on the Tohoku region and regional analyses
- Phase II: Schematic planning – Theory and philosophy of regional, environmental, cultural, and conservational planning + green energy
- The region involves the manipulation of city, town, and village as well as many other physical and technical elements in relation to various physiological, psychological, and spiritual needs. The workshop case study can be selected with regional, contextual, technological, environmental, conservational, cultural, and philosophical requirements that enhance this educational goal. Three primary theories can be researched to generate the schematic concepts for preliminary study, such as cultural, environmental, and ecological issue as follows:
- The primary theory (1) – Definition of cultural planning
- The primary theory (2) – Indigenous civilization of Japan
- The primary theory (3) – ecosystems of “Satoyama-Satoumi” and biodiversity of “Chinju-no-mori”
Figure 3. Satoyama-Satoumi and Chinju-no-mori with rural community and human settlement
- Phase III: Working session – A case study in the Tohoku region
- The workshop case study is an opportunity for students to explore some aspect or issue of the theory of regional and environmental planning. The students analyze and develop the concept for a diversified case study. It is briefly based on three principles as follows:
- Create a regional society and community that is highly resistant to natural disasters.
- Establish an ecosystem that allows people to live in harmony with the natural environment.
- Build a compassionate society and community that cares about people, in particular, the vulnerable.
Figure 4. Regional and environmental planning for case studies
- Phase IV: Final proposal – A new vision of Tohoku
- The changing nature of conflict and natural disasters is leading to re-visioning of traditional approaches to relief assistance and reconstruction process. The brief most sophisticated reconstruction proposals in a workshop are summarized as follows:
- Social – risk assessment: we doubt that the tsunami alone could have caused so much damage, likewise for the earthquake. The rebuilt city should be safely secured.
- Environment – clean energy:
- Environment – vernacular culture: the modern urban-industrial Japan lacked roots in the land, a sense of community, and connection to tradition, that is the Tohoku Region vernacular culture.
- Environment and culture – Satoyama-Satoumi and Chinju-no-mori:
4. Conclusion: Summary in the workshop
As per the green environmental protection, “Creating forests that protect lives” challenges us to plant “native forests of native trees” to increase the chances for achieving a sustainable way of life. In order to stand up to the tsunami that stole the lives of many, and to ease the untimely passing of those who perished, we must create waves of wisdom that will make it possible for us to live in harmony with nature.
Figure 5. Final proposals of a new vision of Tohoku based on Satoyama-Satoumi and Chinju-no-mori
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