Yasushi Takeuchi, a professor of architecture at Miyagi University in Sendai, was at school when the earthquake hit. In an instant, electricity and cell phones died. Two hours later, the land lines went. With nowhere to go, some 40 students flocked to the campus, blankets and food in hand. For two days they hunkered down in its generator-powered buildings. During that time, the plight of one budding architect’s family prompted the teacher to take action. His protégé’s father, an oyster fisherman, lost everything—dwelling, boats, workplace—when the tsunami washed away his coastal hometown of Shizugawa. “I asked him what he needed,”

An advisor to the Kamaishi city government, Tokyo-based architect Toyo Ito has proposed a reconstruction scheme incorporating both built and landscape elements. Bordering the coast, the plan features berms, green belts, and sloped building sites for housing, intended to mitigate future flooding or tidal waves, while a “Fisherman’s Wharf” area and seaside park is planned to reinvigorate the city’s commercial center. ARCHITECT: Toyo Ito & Associates, Architects. BUDGET: N/A. CONTEXT: Located on the Iwate Prefecture coast, Kamaishi City was heavily damaged on March 11. Though local citizens are keen to resurrect their town as before, the government envisions rebuilding on

One year after the catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, Japan is making progress toward rebuilding its devastated east coast, assisted by local architects and construction professionals eager to help—but there is still a long way to go. On March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck Japan’s eastern Sanriku coast, triggering an enormous tidal wave that left 310,000 people homeless, 23,000 dead or missing, and a cluster of unstable nuclear reactors. Today the debris is largely cleared, roads are open, railways are back in operation, and more than half of the damaged seaports are functioning again. And there is more good news.

Having received the green light from the Iwate Prefectural government to erect 60 units of temporary housing for Rikuzentakata, a seaside town of 24,000 that lost 48 percent of its homes, Sumita Jutaku Sangyo, a timber construction company based in the blighted prefecture, tapped Tokyo-based architects Masayuki Harada and Daisuke Sugawara to develop a scheme for the new homes on the appointed site—a hilly inland campground designed for recreational vehicles. Located inland in Sumita-cho, a town that survived the disaster relatively unscathed, the campsite’s individual berths were equipped with utility hookups, and seemed an ideal place for interim housing. But

The residents of Shigeru Ban’s Container Temporary Housing in Onagawa used to call themselves the unluckiest people in town. For starters, the Miyagi Prefecture town of 10,000 was all but destroyed on March 11, when 3,800 of its 4,500 houses sustained significant damage or were demolished outright. Then they lost the lottery for temporary housing, leaving them no choice but to remain even longer in the town’s gymnasium-turned-evacuation-center. But after moving into Ban’s buildings, finished in November, this crowd feels it is the luckiest. Though the end product proved to be worth the wait, Ban’s housing seemed to be a

This project, funded in part by Keio University’s Environmental Innovators Program, includes an integrated community meeting place and bathhouse, set for spring completion. The compact building will house separate baths and changing rooms for men and women, plus a boiler room and multipurpose space. Due to the lack of supplies and skilled labor, architect Hiroto Kobayashi, a professor at the university, and his students devised a clever construction system using interlocking plywood panels, which can be easily assembled by the team itself with simple hand tools. ARCHITECT: Hiroto Kobayashi, Keio University. BUDGET: N/A. CONTEXT: When the public bath (On-sen) was

A concept model of Ban’s scheme for the Cardboard Cathedral.  Related Links: New Zealand Herald: Interview with Head of Earthquake Recovery Authority Shigeru Ban Conceives Simple Solutions for Post-Disaster Zones in New Zealand, Japan A year after a 6.3-magnitude earthquake left Christchurch’s central business district in shambles, Shigeru Ban’s Cardboard Cathedral is ready to start construction. Dividing his time between offices in Tokyo, Paris, and New York, Ban has a stellar track record for helping when natural disasters strike. This time, his pro-bono contribution is a temporary replacement for the New Zealand city’s main Anglican house of worship, a 19th-century

For newly minted architects eager to see the world’s great buildings, international travel is a rite of passage. For Koji Tsutsui, it’s a way of life. Born and bred in Japan, educated in England, and having built his defining work to date in Uganda, the 39-year-old architect divides his time between offices in Tokyo and San Francisco.

Designing a new interior for a building as prominent as Charles Garnier's historic opera house isn't for the faint-hearted.