In 1991, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation announced the Healthy Housing Design Competition. The objective was to demonstrate to the public and the housing industry that it is now possible to design houses for colder climates that are in keeping with the principles of sustainable development and are healthy for the occupants.

The competition challenged the industry to develop innovative ways to design homes with the right balance of occupant health, energy efficiency, resource efficiency, environmental responsibility and affordability. In early 1992, an independent jury selected two winners. The Toronto winning entry is a 1,700 square foot semi-detached house on a vacant (infill) lot in Riverdale. You can learn more about it here.

A healthy house is one that is healthy for its occupants as well as for the global environment. Healthy homes provide healthy indoor environments, use resources such as water and energy efficiently, and are affordable. They respond to evolving household needs using a simple, sensible approach to building, renovation and day-to-day operations. And they are located in communities that are planned and managed to enhance quality of life, protect the environment and encourage economic prosperity.

Why is it important to build and operate healthy houses? We often find ourselves spending more than 90 percent of our time indoors, much of it at home. So it is important for us to design healthy indoor environments. We must also obviously work to minimize the environmental impact of our homes and communities. Housing is a major consumer of energy and water at the occupancy stage and a major generator of waste during construction and occupancy. And this experiment is helping us learn how to minimize this impact.