Life path. A tsunami memorial as a way to escape

This project called “Life Path” is the Tsunami memorial space as well as new model of escaping from Tsunami. The region is Nagatsura Ishinomaki-city Miyagi in Japan. The area had one of the worst damaged by Tsunami on March 11th 2011. Half of population in the city was dead or missing. The most of all houses, streets, bridges, ports and firmer fields were completely disappear. The ground has been moved 5.4m and sunk 1m down. Even now (three month later), the city is still under water. I researched case studies about memorial places for historical disaster in Italy, the U.S. and Japan. (Italy: The grande cretto, Parco monte stella, sala delle cariatide - The U.S.: Ground zero - Japan: Hiroshima peace park) Italy creates a tangible memorial object. The U.S. once again built their symbol. Japan creates an intangible memorial space. I understand that Japanese make an intangible space for memorial disaster, because the main reason is Japanese culture. Japanese does not have religion and gods like Westerners have. Also, Japanese does not have a specific daily place and time for meditation such as Italian go to their church on Sunday morning to pray. Therefore, what is traditionally spiritually important for Japanese people? That is nature, natural forces, and essence. We call them as Kami. For example, when we see color of leaves changing, have a good heaviest of rice crop, and eat heaviest food each season, the moment we sincerely appreciate for those blessing from Kami and have seasonal events and ceremonies for it. I would like to suggest that the life path is arranged with 10km long and 15m height (5m height of path + 10m height of tree) that represented the scale of Tsunami hit the region. Following the path will be planted 2,000 cherry trees called Sakura in Japanese. Sakura blossom is the flower of March and the signal of arrival spring for Japanese from the ancient time. Also, Sakura blossom is the most favorite flower among Japanese. Every year, people are waiting for the moment of Sakura full-bloom. Unfortunately, it was not for this year. I hope the path will become a clear and safe path to escape from Tsunami, and Sakura trees will become the symbol of the path that people remember about March of 2011.