Journal of the Korean Housing Association ISSN:2234-3571(Print) 2234-2257(Online) 한국주거학회논문집

This project was conducted as part of the Building America program that proposed the overall mission to achieve 30-50% reduction in existing building energy use. The purposes of this project were to analyze architectural styles and features named as archetypes of existing homes within the Great Lakes regions that include Michigan and identify the dominant type that would offer significant potential for energy-efficient retrofit. Housing archetypes were analyzed according to vintage, style, and construction characteristics in two target cities within the region. The findings from an intensive case study targeting the City of Ann Arbor established a fundamental framework for characterizing local housing archetypes and determined the dominant housing archetype that needed energy-efficient retrofit. An extended case study then conducted in Grand Rapids additionally refined this framework for the future application. This paper explained the process and data collection method to develop the framework that can be utilized by other researchers to determine the target housing types for energy-retrofit research.