Alnoba Wins AIA New Hampshire Award

Alnoba is pleased to announce that our meeting house has been awarded a 2020 Honor Award for Excellent in Architecture Design by the American Institute of Architects New Hampshire.

The award was juried by leading architects from the Seattle, WA area. It recognizes not just beauty of design but also how buildings perform for people and the environments in which they are situated.

Alnoba was given the award in part for how fundamentally energy conservation and ecology underlie is design. Our Passive House Institute-certified building uses geothermal heating and triple-paned German windows to reduce energy consumption. Solar panels on the property provide electricity. Materials were chosen thoughtfully and carefully, from the 18th century barn timbers that frame our gallery to the floors of our Education Room, which were made from standing dead trees. Others were sourced locally, like the timbers of the Great Room and the stones of our massive fireplace.

Architect Matt O’Malia, designer of Alnoba, says that his time in Europe helped him rethink how to approach design. “I got my secondary degree from a German university, which opened my eyes to a completely different level of construction. They have a consideration of buildings as being long-lived, well-built, quality items, rather than quick and fast. That has informed a lot of my role as to how I see myself as an architect.”