COII (coii.co), Community of Imaginative Ingenuity, becomes reality this year, creating a neighborhood of healthy, comfortable, and sustainable homes in Bloomington Illinois. As described on COII’s website, they are building “A home community that offers a place of belonging, innovation, regard for the earth, and is fun!”
Build Equinox is excited to be part of COII’s first high performance, environmentally minded neighborhood. And, we are fortunate to have COII’s first project in our backyard!
COII’s Maple Square development will have 20 single family homes with a variety of floor plans. The neighborhood's different home design share an exciting array of features that places the neighborhood in a class of its own:
- All homes have smart indoor air quality management with Build Equinox’s CERV2 energy efficient ventilation system.
- High performance building shells with high R-value external surfaces and highly sealed envelope.
- CERV2 controlled thermal and moisture comfort conditioning utilizing high efficiency, cold temperature heat pumps and dehumidification.
- Rainwater harvesting that contributes up to 50% of household water needs and reduces storm water runoff!
- Native plant vegetation featuring a wonderful array of central Illinois prairie plants.
- And cost savings that keep money in homeowner pockets and the community! COII homes are estimated to save $1200 per year in energy and water savings in comparison to conventionally built homes, with more savings for buyers who include the solar option to their solar ready home.
Rebecca Dorise is COII’s founder and CEO. COII’s vision is creation of neighborhoods composed of healthy, resource efficient homes based on environment conservation and economic optimization. Over the past three years, COII has worked to integrate the listed features into cost efficient housing units. Bloomington Illinois is excited to have COII’s first neighborhood development added to their community.
COII’s beautiful homes are designed by Architect Ryan Reber, an experienced high performance home designer. We’ve worked with Ryan since 2016 when he designed Eco-House, featured in our newsletter (Net Zero Eco-House spotlight, Oct 2016). Ryan’s beautiful homes extend our Midwest Prairie architecture heritage to a new level of form and function.
Renderings of COII’s Skyline-Vibe single family attached homes and COII’s 1600sqft Warm-Beau home are shown below. We will feature more COII home designs as well as construction updates in future articles.
Education and training are important aspects of COII’s mission. Build Equinox Vice President Victor Nino, PhD, PE will present a COII-hosted webinar on indoor air quality on January 27, 2026 at 7pm (central). Registration is open to the general public, and we hope you sign up!
