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In large-scale disasters and the subsequent recovery process, land usage and urban spatial forms change. It is therefore important to use this process as an opportunity to create a more sustainable spatial structure. This study considers the urban spatial transformations that took place after the Great East Japan Earthquake, their causes, and accompanying issues by investigating building construction in the recovery process. The authors discovered that individual rebuilding is primarily concentrated in vacant lots within the city’s existing urbanized areas. This is likely due to the spatial impact of the urban planning and agricultural land use planning system, the area division of urbanization promotion areas, and the urbanization restricted areas, all of which were in place prior to the disaster and which have guided development. On the other hand, there are areas severely damaged by tsunami in which there has been little reconstruction of housing that was completely destroyed. The authors concluded that building reconstruction in Ishinomaki City resulted in both the formation of a high-density compact city and also very low-density urban areas.

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A Study on Building Restrictions in Early Stage after the Great East Japan Earthquake and its Effect on Urban Form After the urban area suffered serious damage caused by great disaster, the government may impose building restrictions on urban areas during the rebuilding.It is "Building Restrictions in Early Stage" based on Article 84 of Building Standards Law and Urban Disaster Recovery Promotion Areas(R.P.A). The purpose of this research is to obtain knowledge concerning the operation of building restrictions. From the results of this study, following conclusions can be drawn: Firstly, R.P.A was flexible operation by each afflicted municipality. Secondly, we need to extend the scope of building restrictions. In a future disaster, it is required that the system be linked to overall reconstruction, including disaster risk area designation, without restricting initial building restrictions to urban planning projects.

During the UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction (WCDRR), discussions on “designing for a safe and secure home and community” referenced various case studies and challenges from the “Build Back Better” (hereafter “BBB”) project. This paper introduces the following achievements of the BBB projects carried out by the authors: 1) leadership from academia that established a framework of practical dialogue (conferences) – more than mere information sharing – for maturing plans, 2) creation of the master plan concepts for each project based on expert perspectives in urban planning, landscape, and architecture, 3) development of an interrelationship between local tsunami defenses, such as river and coastal levees, and community-specific contexts and damaged facilities within the framework of civic design and community-building in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, 4) designing of reconstruction plans achievable through coordination with relevant institutions and through consensus-building with residents amid a high number of reconstruction projects, 5) advanced level of maturation of plans gained through continuous collaboration, and 6) creation of a place for community interaction as one step in recovery process and as a venue to realize the importance of public information disclosure