Overview

Architecture Global Aid - is a humanitarian architecture studio, a laboratory, an urban planning studio, an action group and a research team specialized in architecture, urban planning, sociology and urban geography. Our studio was born in Japan after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, better known as "The Great Eastern Earthquake of Japan". Our story began by bringing together students, architects and urban planners from Tokyo Institute of Technology to help in the short, medium and long term reconstruction of the cities destroyed by the tsunami of March of the same year in northern Japan. Since then, our project of architecture and humanitarian urbanism revolves around four fundamental pillars: -Migration, adaptation and resilience due to natural, environmental and political factors -Tradition, knowledge, materials and local culture -Invisible Structures -Urban planning for communities Architecture Global Aid's first project was called "You R Not Alone Project" (in Japanese "Hitori Ja Nai") and involved over 200 volunteers who were active in the regions around Fukushima in 2011 in issues related to local building knowledge of the affected population, mental health, loneliness and support to tsunami survivors. During the first years after the Japanese tsunami, the aid group financed and developed several construction projects following the "Mina No Ie" action of Japanese architect Toyo Ito, which consisted of building culturally integrated places (places of memory) together with the local community to bring together the social support of the destroyed community through vernacular architecture. In addition, Architecture Global Aid collaborated with other groups such as Shigeru Ban VAN Volunteers in the reconstruction of cities such as Onagawa, near the coast of Sanriku in northern Japan, as part of the immediate response to the devastation of the tsunami.