September 17, 2020

Team UOW win Engineering Excellence Award

Desert Rose wins again

Team UOW won the Inspirational Engineering Project award for their project  at the recent Australian Engineering Excellence Awards.

The award recognises Australia’s top engineering projects and the engineering teams behind them.

Civil Mining and Environmental Engineering Head of School and team leader, Professor Tim McCarthy, said “this award is special because we were judged against all the massive and impressive engineering projects across all engineering disciplines in the Sydney region”.

“When you read through the list of finalists and consider that Desert Rose House was one of only six projects selected as a winner for the Sydney region, you can get an idea of the impact this Solar Decathlon inspired project has had,” he said.

“All of us at Team UOW thank all of our supporters across the campus for your enthusiasm and constant goodwill towards this amazing project.”

About Desert Rose

Throughout 2017 and 2018 more than 200 students volunteered from the University of Wollongong and TAFE NSW, to take part in the Desert Rose House project.

The collaboration between students, staff and industry was called Team UOW and they built a net-zero energy eco-friendly home that was architecturally inspiring, innovative and adaptive to a person’s needs as they age.

The home’s design takes into account the challenges people may encounter when suffering from dementia and other age-related disabilities. The unique features means the home will adapt to the occupant through the years, making it ‘A House for Life’.

Desert Rose House came second at the Solar Decathlon 2018 – the world’s largest sustainable architecture contest that challenges student teams to design and build highly efficient and innovative buildings powered by renewable energy.