An Eco-Friendly Accessory Dwelling Unit Home in Minneapolis

Natural materials, urban density, clean energy, and community build 

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Inspiration - S-Haus - straw bale office building in Austria.
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Location - Bryant Ave Bike Boulevard.
Hello! We are undertaking an exciting home-building adventure on the Bryant Bike Boulevard in Uptown, Minneapolis. As clean energy nerds who are concerned about climate change, we have strong goals in building a low carbon-intensive house in 2021. Here, we document our experience in navigating design and material decision making, city approval successes and challenges, and our community build process.  ​

Our Best Attempt at Sustainability

 We're thinking about carbon as holistically as possible in terms of siting, building materials, construction processes, and on-going operations. Our goals for this building are:
  • Electric-powered construction tools (our power comes from a rooftop PV and a community solar garden)
  • Is nearly zero-waste, meaning the materials can be composted or recycled at end-of-life​
  • ​Meets City regulations for ADUs/cluster developments
  • Sited in an urban, walkable, bikeable, transitable area
  • Meets passive house requirements
  • Net-positive operational energy ​
  • Uses natural materials
  • ​Small footprint​

Learn & consider joining this sustainable building adventure. ​​

Subsequent pages give more details about the design, why we've chosen straw bale construction, and who/what resources we're using.  We'll also try to keep up a blog during the build itself. We want this build to not only be a learning experience for us, but also for the community. If you're interested in participating, please fill out the survey using the button below. 

The straw bale build is underway. See blog page for more)! 

Presentations:

uptown_strawhouse_2020.05.13.pptx
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Contact Us

uptownstrawhouse@gmail.com