Self-culture and sustainable development of a community in the Peruvian Rainforest

The author, an architect who graduated in 1996 from the Department of Architecture and Urbanism, Ricardo Palma University, Lima, Peru, is currently working as a research visitor at the Urban Studio of Professor Haruhiko Goto at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. Further to being Head of her architectural firm in Lima (since 2003) with a grant from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), her projects include the final coordination, with Austrian architect Hans Hollein, of the Landscape Project for the Lima Headquarters of Interbank (the second largest bank in Peru); her role as Assistant Project Manager of EMILIMA S.A. (Lima Municipal Real Estate Firm), and her research work on Japanese Gardens in Okinawa (Shuri Castle's Gardens restoration Consultant) under landscape engineer Shimada Hiromitsu. The text that follows is a slightly revised and edited version of a paper presented by the author at the international symposion on "Globalization and Local Identity," organized jointly by the World Society for Ekistics and the University of Shiga Prefecture in Hikone, Japan, 19-24 September, 2005.