Sanriku Project, Minamisanriku, Japan

A year out from last year’s tsunami, attitudes were very different. As part of the newly-formed Sanriku Project, Josh Margul (MUP ’13) and a team of Harvard-affiliated students, researchers, and professors revisited the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi, Japan, where three Community Service Fellows worked in the summer of 2011.

This time around, with much of the ground cleared, the focus was on town planning, economic futures, and architectural and landscape solutions for community rebuilding. Over the course of six weeks, Josh and students worked with town residents, the local government, and a consulting firm heading up the redevelopment plans, trying to reconcile all these challenges into a vision for the future of Minamisanriku.

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