Our mission is to build an affordable, energy efficient, environmentally responsible home within the city limits of downtown Ely, MN, and share the process through a series of informative articles. Our goal is to document the entire project through stages, including site analysis, architecture and design, material choices, construction, in addition to hands-on community involvement. We are eager to share articles on our website informing on the process, in addition to sustainable building tips + tricks.

Following project completion, we will be performing a 5-year study monitoring the house’s performance. This will result in a once-a-year comprehensive document detailing how the house performs and monitors for energy, including positive and negative issues that we can improve on, what materials worked well, what we would have approached differently, etc.

During this process we will educate on the financial advantages of building green, the process of solar installation, the benefits of using repurposed materials, sustainability systems, structural and design choices, and site location.