Production of gathering spaces in post-disaster recovery scenarios: case studies from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami-2011

Gathering and public spaces, along with infrastructure and houses, are demolished because of disasters, which weakens the community ties. Different approaches, such as government-led and community-driven, to recovery initiate the recovery of gatherings and public spaces, and the long-term impact of each recovery approach on community recovery may not be overseen. This study attempts to determine incorporation of community participation in different recovery approaches and its corresponding result in the production of gathering spaces, based on two main background theories: Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation and Henri Lefebvre’s production of space triad. We attempted to determine the results by reviewing case studies with different recovery processes after the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami-2011 and through interviews and questionnaire surveys. The results showed that the production of gathering spaces may be associated with the recovery scenario in each case study. In community-driven cases, the main gathering spaces are small open spaces, evenly superimposed and accessible, and diverse in spatial configuration, provide services for the users at a good level, and are in a sync with other gathering spaces. By contrast, in government-led cases, gathering spaces contain primary and secondary spaces that lack connections with each other. These main gathering spaces are centralized near disaster public housing sites, are highly accessible to disaster public housing residents, provide a high range of leisure-based activities, and provide services to users from inside and outside of the communities. These main gathering spaces are extended by inclusive open space (Hiroba) and this spatial planning is closer to the concept of public spaces compared to others.