This thesis will generate new practices and strategies of urban design and architecture for Ishinomaki, Japan, a city subjected to the climatic fluctuations of natural disasters. The current practice of urban design and architecture lacks a harmonious relationship to the transformations (flux) of our reality. “Flux” is the continuous flowing of fluid, particles, or energy that is moving on or passing through a surface. A condition of continuous change. Among the most urgent need of our planet is for our coastal cities to be resilient to natural disasters, a condition of environmental change that forges an impermanent environment, where the efficiency of urban networks, services, and circulation cannot survive. Eighty percent of our world’s population, including three-fourths of our world’s mega-cities reside in coastal regions and every year tsunamis, floods, and other coastal natural disasters kill around ninety-nine thousand people, affecting close to sixty million people worldwide. They have an immediate impact on human lives and often result in the destruction of the physical, biological, and social environment. These difficult conditions for coastal cities have inspired three new resilient “plug-in” practices: natural sustainability, social sustainability, and urban sustainability. These new strategies will generate new thinking about environmental flux in Ishinomaki, and guide the process of transforming urban and architectural practices to strengthen coastal dwelling.
Key words: flux, natural disasters, coastal dwelling, resilience, sustainability, coastal vulnerability, practice, urban form, plug-in
