EVALUATION OF DIALOGUE PROCESS FOR SUBLATION (AUFHEBEN) USING SWARM PLANNING FOR RECONSTRUCTION AFTER 2011 JAPAN EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI

Abstract

Flexible planning and consensus building are important issues in tackling climate change and
natural disasters. However, verification of successful discussion and planning processes are limited. This study
verifies the effectiveness of the Swarm Planning's Centre for Development of Creative Thinking (COCD) tool, a
creative planning process. We organized workshops with eight student groups to plan house relocation and
seawall reconstruction in the 2011 Tohuku Disaster area. We allocated students who had pros and cons on
housing-relocation and seawall reconstruction. For comparison, four Conventional planning Groups (CG) used
the two-dimensional box sheet, while the four Swarming planning Groups (SG) used the COCD box tool. It was
difficult to overcome the conventional planning, as all CG plans rebuilt the seawall. On the contrary, all SG
plans didn’t include seawall. Half of SG groups also proposed land-use beyond the minimum agenda (housing
relocation and new seawall). Notably, the SG1's housing relocation site was located within the highest area
flooded by the 2011 tsunami; they explained this plan can minimize both land-purchasing costs and tsunami
risks, while victims can still live nearby the sea. After the workshop, every group presented their proposal, and
the audience evaluated each proposal including their own using the Semantic Differential Method. As a result,
statistically, the majority of the students evaluated the SG's land-use proposals with higher scores than the CG’s
proposals. Thus, the Swarm Planning process seemed to have provoked discussions of new possibilities
(sublation) by putting together conflicting opinions, expanding the possibility for more flexible alternatives.