Page 4 RAIN February/March 1976 Taxing the Pavement, Not the Earth • I . . . • Johnson Creek flows through the southeast corner ·of. Portland. The largest creek in -~> One of a number of streams which feed , into Johnson Creek AGRICULTURE continued from page 2 practical primer is an excellent way to start.•Covers what type of egg-l~yers to get, when, where and how to buy brood•· hens, electrical brooders, post brooder chicks, housing and equipment, health, care, roosters, egg care, economics,,eating chickens and hen-watching for fun. Does anyone know how to go about urban chicken-raising? Quietly? Legally? "Poisoned Cities and Urban Gardens," in The Elements, Jan. 1976, 1901 Q Street N.W. Washington, DC. 20009 '$5/yr ($10 institutions). Gil Friend from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance wrote this excellent article in response to one in the Sept~mber Elements entitled "Poisoned Gardens." fr puts the whole issue of lead contaminatioI}. of urban (and suburban) gardens into a broader perspective. Do we stop trying to grow food in the city or do we attack the root of the problem? -replacing ✓ autos and industrial pollution with mass transit systerps and neighborhood production units. The situation is a bothersome one because serious health problems ar·e at stake. J{esearc.h is currently being done on lead levels by Environmental Response of Washington University·in St. Louis. Watch for their results. • In the meantime, wash your lettuce! the city of Portland, it floods·at least a couple of times a year. • . The people who live in the flood plain area have a differ:n~ vie~ of the creek than those that live on higher banks or hill tops. · Yet another point of view is held by the people wh~ live in the 80-square-mile drainage area, but away from the creek. . • The Metropolitan Sewage District (MSP) is one of those multi-_government agencies (county, city, federal)·set up to de_al with wiggly things that don't fit political boundaries, such things as J ohnsotl Creek, which flows through three counties and two small towns. .The MSD has come up with a w·ay of supporting a program of maintenance of the .creek. A flood control program that does.not call for large.stream c~ntainment programs-no conduit "packaging" programs.-is proposed. • . . . To be financed by a taxation of the human inhabitants·of the drainage area, based on the amount of impervious soil they own, the plan would, for example, have people with parking lots pay more th~n farmers. • . Plans also include tax benefits for persons who improve the water flow retardation • quality of the land, e.g. construct ponds, plant t·~ees, etc. What is,also noteworth is the change in direction; ,previous plans ~ave always called for large final solutions, whereas t~e development of a maintenance program reflects a guardianship kind of relationship. . . There are, of course, some loopholes. For example, if _land use laws are not also admini~tered and the development (of more slippery cemented drainage areas) outraces the mainten,ance and cleaning-up program, then larger solutions will look necessary, but only because existing land use ordinances were not,recognized as integral to making the "small, less expensive solution_" worl{.. S.J. C!RCHITECTURE ) Centering, M.C. Richards, $3.95, Wesleyan University Press, 1962 Middletown, CT 06457 This book has been around for a long . time, but l only re_cently stumbled upon it in Lane's book piles. It deals with the real center of doing anything well-the _- art qf making the potter, not making the pot, It's a modern Western equivalent to Coomaraswamy's The Indian Craftsman (Probsthain & Co., 1909, out of print), which deals with the development of a person's skills, faculties a1,1d depth through a trade. Centering ought to be· read by every architecture student (if not every student). It brings )alive the old Zen tale of the master who taught his students everything exc~pt painting._ When their knowledge became balanced, the painting·would come. 'I Synopses.and Summaries from Natipna/- Swedisb Building Reseqrcb Swedish Council for Building Research ' • Mail Fack S-192, Stockholm Office Atlasmul'en 1, Stockholm, Sweden English summaries of the many excellent res~arch reports prepared for the Swedish Council for Building Research. Published nine times a year..Most reports are in Swedish, but summaries in English are excellent arid some technical papers are available in English. • "The Window as an Energy Factor,'.' Swedish Building Research Report R431975, Folk~ Hagman. Hagman provides computer simulation of optimal patterns of USf of insulating shutters on windows to prevent unwanted heat loss and gain while permitting·loss and gain where desirable. Energy savings of 25 p.ercent for houses and 20 percent for apartments is shown to be attainable through this simple process, which also provides increased security, and noise protection. Economic consequences are explored. ''Parking Fac_ilities.for Alternative Uses," Swedish Building Rese·arch Report R41-1975, Jan Dyfrerman and Jan-Erik Hollander. The future life of our buildings and equ_iprrient becomes of more concern to us as our energy I wealth decr'eases. It also becomes increasingly·important to consider the durability of buildings, the possibilities for disassembling and reusing materials· rather than demolishing, and the adaptability of buildings to new uses and conditions as the present activities of a high energy society give way to gentler ways of a more austere society. This study explores the technical and economic problems connected with conversion of parking garages to other uses·. Slight modification of basic design-greater room height, clearance to eradicate floor drainage slopes; structural capacity for such floor leveling materials; layout to
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