Redefining the Nuclear Borderlands of Fukushima

Located in Namie, a town within the post-nuclear Fukushima Prefecture in Japan, our design for a smart community center materializes radiation data to encourage citizen decision-making, redefining the hard borders of the nuclear exclusion zone as established by the Japanese government. To promote higher return rates in the effort to rebuild Fukushima, the legal limit of safe nuclear radiation exposure has been raised by the Japanese government. This resulted in reopening parts of the exclusion zone that are not otherwise deemed safe by international standards. The government’s manipulation of data has caused significant distrust among returned residents of Fukushima, where many have decided to personally measure radiation levels at home. The public database created by these "citizen scientists" reveals the spectrum of radiation levels that are not addressed by the hard boundaries of the established nuclear exclusion zone. We aim to demonstrate that these shifting borderlands are a transitory grey zone that does not fall into strict definitions of what is safe or dangerous. 

​