At the annual Passive House Canada Conference 2025 in Ottawa, the Harold Orr Award was presented to two deserving recipients in Canada’s Passive House movement.
Harold Orr award recipients Guillaume Lamoureux and Dan Dicaire, along with Michael Quast.
About the Harold Orr Award
Harold Orr is considered by many Canadians in the industry to be the father of Passive House. During the energy crisis of the 1970s, the Saskatchewan government commissioned Orr, an engineer, to design a highly energy-efficient house. The result was the Saskatchewan Conservation House, a groundbreaking project that incorporated principles such as passive solar heating, airtight construction, and a heat recovery ventilation system — all foundational to the modern Passive House standard.
Wolfgang Feist, the German physicist who developed the International Passivhaus standard in the 1980s, has acknowledged the influence of this Canadian innovation on his work.
The Harold Orr Award is presented annually by Passive House Canada to recognize individuals who have significantly contributed to advancing Passive House and net-zero building practices across Canada.
2025 Award Recipients
Guillaume Lamoureux, Mayor of La Pêche
We have chosen Guillaume in recognition of the work he did in advocating for the municipality’s new town hall to be built in the most energy-efficient, environmentally friendly way possible, resulting in a beautiful Passive House mass-timber building. The completed building set a milestone in the Canadian Passive House movement as the first institutional building certified in Quebec*, which will act as a case study for other municipalities across the country.
We would also like to acknowledge the other city council members of La Pêche for their contributions in approving and pushing this project forward.
Dan Dicaire, Senior Manager of Conservation and Sustainability at Ottawa Community Housing
We have chosen Dan in recognition of the work he has done is having all of OCH’s recently built community housing buildings built to Passive House standards. This work sets a strong example for the rest of the country’s community housing organizations by demonstrating the cost savings to their organization and the numerous benefits to the residents.
We would also like to acknowledge the other team members at OCH who’s passion for sustainability make this great work possible. In order to continue the momentum we need the support of more organizations like this.
For those who’d like to do a deeper dive into who Harold Orr is, and his contributions to the Canadian Passive House movement, we recommend you watch this video interview between Chris Ballard and Harold Orr in 2021.
*As of the date this article is written May 22, 2025 the building is not certified, but will be in the near future, as the certification process can take some time.
