Pioneer Awards
The world's first Passive House in Darmstadt was a milestone in energy-efficient construction. However, the project realized in the early 90's was only made possible due to the already available research work and practical experience of pioneers and scientists. To honor these groundbreaking achievements, the Passive House Institute has been awarding the Pioneer Award since 2011. The prize is always awarded during the International Passive House Conference - to people who have set standards in the field of energy efficiency, having worked with an innovative building prior to the Passive House.
The Rocky Mountains Institute
The Amercian Amory Lovins was awarded the first Pioneer Award in 2011. At an altitude of more than 2,000 meters (6562 ft), Lovins built an extremely well-insulated, passive-solar house for the Rocky Mountains Institute in Old Snowmass, Colorado, which he founded back in 1982. These experiences gave the Passive House research the assurance and confidence that physics works in practice too. While visiting Darmstadt's first Passive House in 1995, Lovins suggested that the Passive House should be considered not just as a research project, but also as the energy standard of the future.
The Philips Experimental House
Parallel to the Scandinavian and American developments, a systematic study of energy-efficient buildings was being carried out in Germany by Dr. Horst Hörster (research group leader), Dr. Bernd Steinmüller (building models and simulations), Dr. Günther Bergmann, Dr. Richard Bruno, Dr. Wilhelm Hermann, Dr. Reinhard Kersten and Ing. Klaus Klinkenberg, with funding provided by the Federal Ministry of Research. A super-insulated experimental house, built in 1974/75 in Aachen, equipped with geothermal heat exchangers, controlled ventilation, solar and heat pump technology and “inhabited” by a computer, served as a test and calibration laboratory for computer models, used to explore the possibilities of energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources. These studies showed the potential for energy savings in the order of 10 to 20 times for Europe and America using passive measures alone. Thus they provided evidence that these measures are an important step towards energy-efficient buildings. Bernd Steinmüller has been intensively engaged in research on efficient buildings since 1997 and continues to be a pioneer, disseminating original ideas worldwide. Experiences from this project were incorporated into Passive House research from the very beginning.
The DTH Zero-Energy House
In 2013, the Pioneer Award made its way to Copenhagen. In the 1970s, scientists from the Danish Technical University were doing groundbreaking work with a zero-energy house. Built on a campus site, the DTH zero energy house was used at the time for simulations and measurements to optimize components and building services. Among other things, a moveable heat insulation in front of the windows, a device for heat recovery from the exhaust air and a solar heating system were used. The project was directed by Professor Vagn Korsgaard, who passed away in 2012. Engineer Torben Esbensen, one of the driving forces behind the project, accepted the prize at the International Passive House Conference in Frankfurt/Main..
The Saskatchewan Conservation House
After a break in 2014 - at the International Passive House Conference in Aachen where the architecture prize Passive House Award was awarded instead - there was once again a Pioneer Award in Leipzig in 2015. This time, a Canadian project was honored: the Saskatchewan Conservation House. It was at this location where many of today’s Passive House standards were successfully tested back in 1977. At that time, a diverse team of experts in the city of Regina was looking for ways to significantly reduce the consumption of heating oil. The studies showed the importance of the thermal insulation of the building envelope. The Canadian civil engineer Harold Orr, one of the driving forces of the project, received the Pioneer Award at the International Passive House Conference in Leipzig in 2015.
Milestones in history
“Often people are not aware of the significance of the pioneering work that has been done, which is not just the case for energy efficiency”, said Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Feist, founder and director of the Passive House Institute, during the award ceremony in 2013. “With the 'Pioneer Award' we want to contribute to the memory of the important milestones in history and to recognize their significance appropriately.