REE House Project: Resource & Energy Efficiency (REE) Housing Model Design Milwaukee, Wisconsin
The City of Milwaukee boards up and/or tears downsome 400 structures every year. The REE Project aims to use materials from those houses to build new, affordable, sustainable housing in the central city area of Milwaukee. After decades of neglect, these neighborhoods are liberally sprinkled with abandoned houses which contain a wealth of materials when properly dismantled.
We have completed designs for three models:
"The Raised Bungalow" -- a modest one-family home (sketch shown above) that has a lower level which can be finished off inside as the family grows.
"The New Milwaukee Two-Flat" -- an up-down duplex which is not unlike those still found by the thousands in Milwaukee's mature neighborhoods.
"The New Four-Square" -- a single-family two-story model that has enough bulk to feel appropriate on Milwaukee's older blocks.
The REE House Project, with support from , is creating jobs by training workers to dismantle the old houses, and then to build new energy-efficient homes using salvaged and recycled materials.
Design Coalition collaborated on this project with Lou's firm Host-Jablonski Architects. Consulting are Steve Loken of the Center for Resourceful Technology in Montana, and Welford Sanders and Stan Wrezki of the UW-Milwaukee School of Architecture and Urban Planning.
Award: REE House Inc. was nominated for a 2000 HUD Best Practices award
