News
Freedom House, Green Bay, Wis., was recently awarded the 2021 U.S. Wood Design – Jury’s Choice Award from WoodWorks – Wood Products Council. raSmith provided structural engineering services for this project.
Freedom House is a new two-story, wood-framed building consisting of 7,000 square feet of residential space along with 9,000 square feet of administrative space. The two areas are connected by an elevated wood, steel and concrete bridge. Natural cedar cladding combines the two buildings, and light wood framing was used for all primary structural elements including the walls, roof and floors.
Freedom House is unique in that it is built into a hill. A large retaining wall was needed to accommodate this challenging layout. This project also involved a hidden, flat roof to provide space for the mechanicals.
Mike Kren, P.E., structural engineer for raSmith, shared, “The layout for this project was difficult in that we had to utilize large trusses in order to maximize the efficiency of the framing. This allowed for larger open areas in the administrative building.”
Freedom House Ministries provides transitional housing and programming to help families who need temporary living assistance. The new residential building offers space to house up to 16 families. The larger administrative wing provides an area for programming spaces.
Freedom House also received a Daily Reporter (Wisconsin) Top Projects Award in 2019.
About the U.S. Design Awards
The U.S. Wood Design Awards celebrate excellence in wood building design and spotlight its continued rise in popularity across the U.S. Awards are an opportunity to recognize building designers for their skill and ingenuity, and to showcase projects that demonstrate the attributes of wood that make it so appealing.
About raSmith
raSmith is a multi-disciplinary consulting firm comprising civil engineers, structural engineers, land surveyors, development managers, landscape architects and ecologists. Our services are focused on our public and private sector client needs in design and construction including land development, site planning and design, structural engineering, municipal engineering, transportation and traffic, surveying, construction services and geographic information systems (GIS). We work on projects nationwide from our seven locations in Wisconsin, Illinois and California.