Stitches

Abstract

Disaster prevention and coastal protection of Otsuchi have affected the livelihood and the daily pattern of lifestyle of the regular Otsuchian. This work represents the alternative to a typical top down prefectural level demand for a line based infrastructural solution to disaster prevention and creates the required importance of livelihood, culture and identity of a place over the protection structure. While in the design of such critical areas it is important to place protection of the citizens at a high level, it is also a necessity to understand the situation of each city as different from each other. In this way, the genius loci of a place is founded. Along the San Riku coastline where the tsunami and earthquake hit the hardest due to the landscape features and the proximity to the epicenter the government has set a list of top down governed structures that have impacted the urban fabric of the city, This document looks at one of these towns “Otsuchi” and how alternate solutions based on the historical and landscape features of the district can help create landscapes of livelihood for the citizens. Otsuchi among many other Japanese cities faces the issue of a shrinking population due to a lack of economy, a lack of education in the rural areas and a lack of opportunities. The design document also looks at how Identity crisis in a Rias coastline/ Aditya Athreya Rao/ TU Delft 1 landscape can create a set of cyclical opportunities for the people to develop their town responsibly and sustain-ably as they see fit. Landscape design seeks to provide opportunity to the stakeholders to further create, it provides the platform for this creation and the thesis looks at ideas and solutions on ways this can be done. Keywords: Landscape Infrastructure, Identity, Contextual Design Genius Loci, Landscape Design, New landscapes