PORTLAND, Oregon – (March 2, 2012) – An architecture professor from Tokyo’s Meiji University will discuss reconstruction efforts following last year’s devastating Japanese earthquake during a March 9 event in Portland that was arranged in part by the University of Oregon.
In addition to his lecture, Masami Kobayashi will take part in a panel discussion addressing how Portland’s Old Town Chinatown neighborhood can continue to evolve while embracing its cultural heritage. UO student architectural designs for redesigning and rebuilding disaster areas also will be on display during the event, which isfree and open to the public.
The lecture will be from noon to 1 p.m. Friday, March 9, at the Mercy Corps World Headquarters, Aceh Community Room, 45 S.W. Ankeny Street in Portland. The panel discussion – from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the same location – will be moderated by Peter Englander of the Portland Development Commission.
Kobayashi’s visit is part of an exchange between the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts’ Department of Architecture in Portland and Meiji University’s Department of Architecture, School of Science and Technology. His visit is a cooperative effort between the UO, Mercy Corps and the Old Town Chinatown Neighborhood Association’s Land Use Committee.
Kobayashi will bring to Portland nine Meiji University architecture students who have been working on designs for redevelopment of the lower Couch Street area and a Japan-style gate for possible future inclusion in Old Town Chinatown.
Following his lecture, “On the Reconstruction Efforts for Japan’s Earthquake Disaster,” Kobayashi will participate in the panel discussion with community leaders to address “Portland’s Old Town: Past, Present, and Future.”
The panel was organized by Anne Naito-Campbell, a business and community development consultant in Portland.
Old Town Chinatown’s past incorporates the history of Japantown and Naito-Campbell – who has family connections to Japan – said “one of (her) father’s dreams was to bring a ‘Japan-Gate’ to Old Town, as the area was Portland’s Nihonmachi (Japantown) until 1942.”
Collaboration with Meiji University was initiated by UO architecture professor Hajo Neis, who has worked for two years with Kobayashi to study urban transformation and – after Japan’s 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami – to research concepts for regenerative designs after natural disaster. Kobayashi’s visit coincides with design presentations from students in Neis’ Portland urban architecture studio, “Regenerative Design.”
Neis described the joint work on culturally-based projects with Kobayashi and Meiji University as “a stepping stone in our collaboration with Japan.” The collaboration will continue this fall, with concurrent studies and seminars in both Tokyo at Meiji University and at UO-Portland on the Old Town Chinatown redevelopment.
“The mantra of the School of Architecture and Allied Arts is to ‘make good,’” said Kate Wagle, administrative director of the UO architecture program in Portland. “This collaboration is an extraordinary opportunity to use our intellectual and research capital to do just that.”
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is a world-class teaching and research institution and Oregon's flagship public university. The UO is a member of the Association of American Universities (AAU), an organization made up of the 61 leading public and private research institutions in the United States and Canada. The University of Oregon is one of only two AAU members in the Pacific Northwest.
Contact:Sabina Samiee, A&AA Communications, (503) 412-3729, sabinas@uoregon.edu
Sources: Hajo Neis, 503-412-3731, hajoneis@uoregon.edu; Anne Naito-Campbell, 503-636-6655 or 503-481-6656, lotus92@comcast.net; Amy Kohnstamm, Mercy Corps, 503-896-5743, akohnstamm@mercycorps.org; Patrick Gortmaker, 503-227-8600 or 503-807-3517, Patrick@kalbererco.com