"From the Scene of Front Loading"
|
| vol. 4 "From the Scene of Front Loading" |
|
||||||||||||||
"Job Development" with the Residents as the Main Body and Sustainable Community Improvement "To develop a sustainable community, I thought it was necessary to utilize local resources (such as natural environment and human resources) effectively, and for citizens to develop this as their own job in a responsible way (not dependent on administration)." It was October 2002 that NPO Chiikizukuri Kobo (Community Improvement Studio) was established. According to Mr. Kasagi, "Job development" through mutual learning among the residents in an independent way was depicted as a basic stance against various regional challenges. Just after the establishment of the Kobo, he organized "Job Development Workshop".
 Mr. Hiroo Kasagi, Representative Director of NPO Chiikizukuri Kobo Based on the results of these activities, "Kurukuru Eco Project" and "Nanohana Eco Project" form the two wheels of "community improvement using renewable energy". The former aims to promote installation and operation of a small hydro power plant that makes much of the regional characteristics while clearing technological and institutional problems. The latter is a project to grow rapeseed at the unused skiing area or idle farm and offer a service of oil extraction by order (providing newly extracted virgin oil by order from the rapeseed preserved by drying). At the same time, they collect used cooking oil from inns and hotels to refine bio-light oil. Besides, he focused on the natural refrigerating function of an air hole cabin, which used to serve as a storage device for sericulture etc. Restoring it and conducting studies and trials on its new usage, he held "National summit for air hole cabins" as the first attempt in August this year at Omachi, home town of the Kobo. Also in August this year, the Kobo hosted "Projection Mapping Summer Workshop in Hakuba Village", of which FORUM8 is one of the supporters (cosponsored by State of the Art Technologies in Expression Association). Partly because of aiming at leading to development of new sightseeing resources for skiing areas at night, the local participants eagerly learned this advanced expression technology. For its contribution to the regional economy through these activities over 12 years since its establishment and ecotourism business with them as the resources, the Kobo received a prize from Minister of Environment for climate change action in 2005 and 2013 fiscal years. Also in September this year, Sano City of Tochigi Prefecture gave the Kobo "Special prize for the tenth anniversary of the founding of Sano City", which means the grand prix of "Tanaka Shozo Memorial Award" to honor the groups for their outstanding outcome of environmental measurements or natural environment protection activities, having to do with Tanaka Shozo, a famous politician coming from the place.
Also in August this year, the Kobo hosted "Projection Mapping Summer Workshop in Hakuba Village", of which FORUM8 is one of the supporters (cosponsored by State of the Art Technologies in Expression Association). Partly because of aiming at leading to development of new sightseeing resources for skiing areas at night, the local participants eagerly learned this advanced expression technology.
For its contribution to the regional economy through these activities over 12 years since its establishment and ecotourism business with them as the resources, the Kobo received a prize from Minister of Environment for climate change action in 2005 and 2013 fiscal years. Also in September this year, Sano City of Tochigi Prefecture gave the Kobo "Special prize for the tenth anniversary of the founding of Sano City", which means the grand prix of "Tanaka Shozo Memorial Award" to honor the groups for their outstanding outcome of environmental measurements or natural environment protection activities, having to do with Tanaka Shozo, a famous politician coming from the place.
Job Development Workshopwritten by Hiroo Kasagi Development of Facilitation with use of UC-win/Road Mr. Kasagi recalls that what drove him to the present activities is meeting with people suffered from air pollution in the Nishiyodogawa pollution lawsuit (1978 - 1998) and facing the challenge of how to support revitalization of local communities. At the beginning, he supported the patients' group on the side of the plaintiff of the lawsuit almost as a volunteer while belonging to a private think tank. His boss at the time advised him. "Though not established as a job yet, what you are doing now is advocacy planning, which should become very important in the future. So you can do it as your own job." Following his words, he negotiated with the patients' group. As a result, the group commissioned this activity to him as a job. Later, he moved to the "Aozora foundation" (Polluted Area Revitalization Center), which was established based on part of the settlement of the lawsuit as the fund. There he was involved with Nishisuma Urban Planning Highway Pollution Dispute. This is about a plan provided as a restore project after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, which caused opposition among the residents, getting deadlocked. However, through repeated negotiations and doing joint environmental research etc., Kobe City and the residents gradually formed relationship of mutual trust between them. It was accepted for the residents to play major roles in preparing development plans for some sections of the project. Along with this, in 2001, the Aozora foundation came to serve as a facilitator to coordinate the project, nominated by the residents. In doing this, FORUM8's 3D real-time VR "UC-win/Road" was introduced in consideration of needs for support tools to enable technical road design by the residents playing major roles. "I thought its reproducibility was high for those days, but among others it was great in that it allowed reviewing (various) alternative plans. "To reach consensus among the residents on different standpoints who are not specialists, it is important to allow the details of elements likely to cause conflicts to be clearly visualized for discussion, says Mr. Kasagi. Voluntary Simple Assessment Using VR to Spread While accumulating experiences of facilitation for the damage coming from outside, Mr. Kasagi also paid attention to the necessity of spontaneous community improvement among the residents as the main body. As said before, in the activities of NPO Chiikizukuri Kobo, he positioned facilitation of community improvement utilizing natural energy, which leads to CIM, as an important job for him. As a key communication tool in the task, UC-win/Road has been used effectively. As part of this, the Kobo attempted the first voluntary simple assessment for a small-scale soil- collecting project, using UCwin/ Road. Although it was a small-scale development project that didn't satisfy the regulation of the Nagano Prefecture ordinance of environmental assessment, the Kobo performed environmental assessment to explain the environmental impact of the project in advance, in response to the request of a quarrying company in Omachi City. Using 3D VR to reflect the changes in landscape and sunshine caused by the project as well as the influence on the traffic volume or wind direction, they represented the development plan. These data were used not only for discussion in the public hearing but also for gathering opinions widely by opening them to public on the Website. The next example he showed was a solar power generation facility planned to construct on the site where there was once a carp farm in the town of Ikedamachi, Kitaazumi County, Nagano Prefecture. The town has its original ordinance regulations for land use or development in aiming at "the most beautiful town in Japan". In November 2013, the town made a decision not to approve the construction because the planned developed site was located within the rural environment preservation area and that it would cause a problem in terms of landscape. The project owner, thinking that the reason for decision such as an adverse effect on the surrounding landscape should not be appropriate because the ground of the planned site, which used to be a carp farm, was about 2m lower than the ground surface, asked the Kobo for voluntary simple assessment to help reopening consultation again. This year, just like the previous case, the Kobo represented the landscape of the site using 3D VR and made research and estimation on the reflection of sunlight, influences by traffic of construction vehicles, radio interference etc. Through public hearing meetings using these data and publishing them on the Web, environmental measures were strengthened, and also an environmental impact statement has been prepared that suggests validity of the plan. On the other hand, the project owner kept on another similar project in Omachi City in parallel with this. After the start of construction, complaints of noises and vibrations etc. were made from the neighborhood residents to the Kobo. Then Mr. Kasagi and others did research on the site and advised the project owner to take proper measures. The project owner promptly responded to his advice. "Initial assessment should have been made in advance." He heard the residents and contractors saying like this. Following these actions, other project owner asked the Kobo for voluntary simple assessment for the solar power generation facility planned in the southern part of the prefecture. This indicates that its base is steadily spreading wider.
Expecting Link Between Facilitation and CIM In the sense of realization of a sustainable society, participation of the residents in the community development process should allow the developed facility to be used with more care. Thus not only participation of the project owners, designers, and constructers but also that of the residents should be considered in reviewing CIM, as Mr. Kasagi points out. In such a case, while for example engineers may generally want to show things in an overhead view, voluntary simple assessment attaches great importance to showing things from the residents' point of view. In other words, it is necessary to be conscious about the different points of view between both sides; it is a role of the facilitator to connect them. In the light of the idea of aiming at improving the whole construction production system, incorporating a facilitator as a partner in regional development should allow CIM to be more effective, as Mr. Kasagi observes. "I think assessment has a deep relation with CIM since it requires simulation." Especially the field of environmental assessment tends to require compound and more advanced elements in recent years, with more availability of simulation using VR. Based on this, he expects initial assessment using CIM to become also applicable to the assessment of small-scale familiar projects. |
||||||||||||||
| (Written by Takashi Ikeno) | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
| (Up&Coming '14 Fall Issue) | ||
 |
