Business operations and civil life have been seriously being affected by the quake which has caused a shortfall of electric power supply over a wide area and also causing extensive damage to both individual buildings and urban infrastructures. In these circumstances, Nihon Sekkei has started the following activities towards the recovery as a social responsibility of our profession.

1: Emergency Response to the Disaster

We have immediately commenced the investigations on a state of damage of each building built or under-construction with Nihon Sekkei involvement in the affected area. We have initiated this work by telephone and email contacts and further conducted several on-site investigations according to the situation.

Fortunately, we have found no total structural failures or even permanent damage to the structure proper of any building. Only limited damage to building finishes and building systems were identified. We have commenced to undertake necessary restoration work accordingly. Nihon Sekkei is continuing its consultations with building owners and have submitted several reports on structural safety issues, countermeasures for power cuts and power saving planning, etc.

2: Support to Quake Victims

Nihon Sekkei, as one of our support programs, will commence accepting irregular spring-internship for students of architectural, urban planning and environment related departments in April from universities where the start of school terms are likely to be delayed due to the great quake.

We are also providing work opportunities for those who have unexpectedly become unemployed, under a special recruiting program in the field of architectural design and urban planning.

Nihon Sekkei will donate the amount which we are able to achieve through electricity saving within our office, together with donations collected from our company staff, to quake victims through public organizations and educational institutions.

3: Activities toward Recovery

Nihon Sekkei as professionals in the field of architecture, urban planning and environmental design will provide support for making revival plans which are to be considered by local communities and local governments in the affected area. Especially, we are conducting a broad inquiry into what we can do for our clients and previous project areas based on our depth of expertise in “town refresh program” and “area master plan”

We will also contribute to society as a whole as professionals at both corporate and individual levels by participating in various recovery activities of Architectural Institute of Japan and City Planning Institute of Japan and the building damage investigations which will likely be requested by various organizations.

4: Information on Disaster Countermeasures

Nihon Sekkei is providing information to the public through the architectural media on the current status of some prominent buildings in the affected area such as Ishinomori Manga Museum and Aquamarine Fukushima including the demonstrated effectiveness & results of our design efforts in disaster prevention.

We have announced our opinion and possible responses to planned black-out and restrictions on electricity consumption on our homepage to our clients and the public at large and commenced consultations.

5: Activities with Business Continuity Plan (BCP)

In the immediate aftermath of the Quake, Nihon Sekkei set up the company headquarters for disaster control to gather the information of staff safety and damage status of our company facilities. Following a reduction of staff due to inability to commute to work because of the disordered public transportation, we have executed our business operations in accordance with the action plans set in Business Continuity Plan.

Currently, we are planning the electricity power cut scheme for the coming summer months by enacting both total amount cutting and peak-cut/peak shift. Hence, Nihon Sekkei is actively cooperating with the requested restrictions by METI(Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry).