As to the design of the proposed structure, there is much that can be improved to maximize sustainability. Examination of the following sites demonstrate more advanced projects for sustainability:

http://www.zedfactory.com/bedzed/bedzed.html

http://www.mryarchitects.com/index_centered.html tango.bo01 exhibition housing - Malmo, Sweden

ModLofts and Milwaukee should aspire to exceed BedZed and tango, especially as it is zoned to be higher than BedZed so as to allow for better wind regimes. Here are two links for silent, safe, devices especially appropriate for urban venues and which could be placed in arrays:

http://www.windside.com/

http://www.mag-wind.com/

There are others including horizontal axis devices (invariably noisier) and the combination vent/windstream capture devices on BedZed.

There are many synergies that may arise from a more careful application of sustainable/solar productive technologies for ModLofts. Consider the angle of the property suggesting a southwest facing arch which may well capture afternoon sun and provide a wind-screen from northerlies and, with clever westerly tarping, winter northwesterlies and, with retraction of tarping, cooling summer breezes. The south-facing Lincoln Ave edge suggests maximum all-day thermal-solar gain that can be focused on heating fluids, perhaps with frensel or parabolic lens arrays. (see my reference to Dr. Stanford Klein last pm:

http://sel.me.wisc.edu/research/genresrch.html)

Grey-water storage for toilet flushing, as at the Urban Ecology Center, is a scheme that will be more and more necessary in more water-short regions, and demonstrating it here may tend to lessen resentments about Milwaukee’s relative water-abundance, as well as set an example. Step-out balconies allow for potential ‘green space’ for each unit, and Mansard-type top-floor with so-called ‘French balconies’ would add period style perhaps more appropriate to the neighborhood. Conditional air space rights above the existing rowhouses would allow a diagonal deck for more green space that could be removed should the row houses expand up, but permanent rights would keep the row houses and ModLofts design and allow for some larger units. Also consider a larger second-floor deck with adjacent second-floor commercial space instead of apartments. Also, flexible floorplans and wall partitions would allow for a broader range of customers, as I understand has been done at the almost full Warehouse condos at 2nd and Maple. Placing common mechanicals below top roof deck allows for spectacular views of the harbor and lake, perhaps a retractable-tarp health club/cafe.

The drawings presented last pm portray a pretty boxy building. Sure, I understand the tendency toward low-cost construction to maximize return, but sustainability involves pay-back from energy savings and production, so a less modular, more custom-to-the-environment design that allows higher solar/wind gains with steady pay-back would seem to work out financially in the long run as the marginally higher up-front costs are paid down sooner than from just rent and long-term profit from continuing net energy production beyond market rental rates accrues to the owners.

I hope you will make a better effort, aspiring to the best of your rhetoric. Milwaukee, and especially Bay View, deserve better than what we saw last pm. Please let me know how your planning develops.

Gregory Francis Bird

2230 South Woodward Street

Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53207 1316

414 737 6186