UOW Up For The Challenge – Dubai Solar Decathlon 2018

You may recall the University of Wollongong’s victory in the 2013 China Solar Decathlon with the zero energy house known as the Illawarra Flame. I was privileged to be part of the team and Edmiston Jones assisted in mentoring the students through the design process. If you hadn’t heard, we won that international competition and UOW retain the highest score of all the decathlons run since the event’s inception! Just quietly, we also achieved the highest score in the 'architecture' contest of the 10 part competition with a bunch of engineers, commerce and communication students competing against architecture schools from around the world. Well, it's on again. UOW has been successful in being selected for the Solar Decathlon to be held in Dubai 2018. With the working title, Desert Rose, the house will be designed to accommodate a resident with dementia while respecting the cultural sensitivities of the Islamic context. Student workshops have begun in earnest working towards the deadline for the schematic design in February 2017. Edmiston Jones GBB hosted a workshop for Desert Rose in our Wollongong office last Saturday. It was facilitated with our fellow architect and good friend, Caroline Piddock. Our co-operative design methodology was presented to the gathering of academics and students. A further workshop later this month will have the students in cross discipline teams workshopping a concept design for presentation and critique. The outcome will be bones of the schematic design which will then be developed over the year ahead leading to the construction and shipping the house for reconstruction in Dubai. We’ll keep you posted as this exciting project evolves.