JLAU Delegate Feature: Dr. Misato Uehara
Misato Uehara, Ph.D., JLAU, JNLA, is an associate professor, vice-chair of Environmental design unit, the Social Research Center, Shinshu University.
He serves as the International Federation of Landscape Architects Asia-Pacific Region’s Chair of Climate Change Taskforce team and is the official delegate of the Japan Landscape Architect Union (JLAU) at the IFLA-APR council.
The 2011 Tohoku Disaster brought a new and challenging theme to an area devastated by a large-scale natural disaster. His study, funded by the Japan Scientific Research, used the McHarg’s planning process and 1980s’ Japanese ecological database for holistic land-use planning. Fukushima prefecture, Shinchi-town chose the most suitable residential relocation sites from all of its lands by citizen participation, whereas many other towns used surplus land of the existing city plans for relocation sites. His study proved that Shinchi-town sites are robust for not only tsunamis and earthquakes but also other natural disasters. This town had recouped its population to pre-2011 levels in 5 years, while the population of other disaster-affected municipalities was reducing. This proves that landscape initiatives are important for regional resilience in disaster reconstruction.
He received her Ph.D (Design). from Kyushu University. After the Ph.D. program, he worked with Kobe Design University. He has published in both Japanese and English professional journals：Landscape Research Japan, International Review for Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development, and Springer Book, etc.
Awards
1. - Rural Residence in the New Century - Excellent Works for the Design Competition in 2000 of Architectural Institute of Japan, selected by the Kyushu Branch
2. Research Encouragement Prize of Japanese institute of landscape Architecture 2006
"Evaluation of Potential Regional Resources for Sustainable Society and Research on Land Use Planning"
3. International Federation of Landscape Architects, Outstanding Awards, Category: Natural Disasters and Weather Extremes Africa, Asia Pacific, Middle East Awards 2018, Resilience by Design,2018
4.International Federation of Landscape Architects, Honorable Mention, Category: Analysis and Masterplanning, Asia Pacific, Middle East Awards 2018, Resilience by Design,2018
Actual planning work
1. Reconstruction plan from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake: Research on commissioned research of Shinchi town land-use planning
2. Design Advisor：Landscape design of the Linear express new station in Nagano Prefecture