Matthew O’Malia

When you look for heroes, you should always look in your own backyard. Based in Belfast, Maine Matt has blazed the trail for Passive House design and is now redefining the sustainable design industry.

In 2013, we gave Matt a seemingly impossible task—transform a set of New England meeting house timber frames into a Passive House standard building. Calm and unfazed, Matt set about to design Alnoba to be the first passive house standard building of its kind in the Northeast, which uses 75–90% less energy and blends 19th century craftsmanship with 21st century green technology.

He is an award-winning architect and has become a leader in Passive House design in the U.S. and speaks internationally on sustainable design. He co-founded GO Logic, a design/build firm that is focused on developing a practical, cost effective approach to meeting the ultra-high-performance Passive House standard, which use 90% less energy in space heating when compared to traditional buildings. Their first project, the GO Home became the 1st certified Passive House building in Maine. Next he went on to found GO Home, which provides pre-designed, prefabricated, homes for New Englanders, which also use 90% less energy. This spring he launched OPAL, an architecture firm that is focused on creating the next generation of large scale passive house, carbon-positive buildings.

Believing a “well insulated home can change the world,” Matt launched his latest venture, GO Lab, which will help transform the forest products economy by creating a manufacturing facility in a former paper mill in Madison, Maine. It will turn daily shipments of wood chips from Maine’s lumber yards into affordable, sustainable insulation and create good paying jobs.  Knowing that buildings produce 44% of carbon emissions, GO Lab believes that “the survival of the planet is at risk unless critical industries change the way they do business.”

Matt has spent his career rethinking every detail of building construction, with an eye toward high performance, quality, and sustainability. He is an architect, entrepreneur and visionary leader.  For these reasons, we present Matt with the 2019 Alnoba CEO Environmental Responsibility Award

“ It is my responsibility as an architect to create buildings that not only meet current performance standards, but also anticipate future standards and contribute to the well-being of future generations.”

See Matt in Action

Matt O’Malia details the inspiration behind his innovative and sustainable wood fiber insulation project.

GO Logic & TimberHP by GO Lab

Go Logic was the first company in Maine to be certified by the Passive House Institute U.S. to design and build “passive homes” that meet the highest international standard for energy efficiency and typically use less than 10% of the energy required to heat standard-built homes. They would later design Alnoba turning a collection of old New England timber frame barns into the first passive house building of its kind in the northeast with Alnoba.

Believing a “well-insulated home can change the world,” GO Logic Founder and Alnoba architect, Matthew O’Maila launched his latest venture, GO Lab.  The enterprise will help transform the forest products economy by creating a manufacturing facility in a former paper mill in Madison, Maine. It will turn daily shipments of wood chips from Maine’s lumberyards into affordable, sustainable insulation and create good-paying jobs.   We are pleased to be an early investment supporter of GO Labs.