My day started with a 4:30am alarm and an instant leap out of bed to quieten my phone on the other side of the room so to not wake up my roommate who had set her alarm 20 minutes after my own. Sorry Laura!
Today was the Opening Ceremony for the Solar Decathlon, which also marked the beginning of the public tours. After fifteen days of sweat, dust, sand, dirt, paint and oil, seeing everyone meet in the hotel lobby in their formal uniform, all scrubbed up and ready to go was quite the refresher!
When we arrived at the Solar Hai we had a wander around the house, admiring our hard work, congratulating each other and doing some last minute tidying. This whole time, I’d been practically hugging a very special book. Reluctant to let anyone look at or touch it without asking, ‘HAVE YOU WASHED YOUR HANDS?’, this book was a guest book I had designed for the Desert Rose so that when people tour or stay in our house, they can leave a message sharing their experience in the house. This book was a big design job, and one I put my heart and soul into, so finally having it in tangible form was a big deal to me.
It’s a good thing I kept this book under such tight security because about an hour later, it would receive its first signature by no less than His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum as he was given a tour of the house by or project manager, Clayton! This was a very big moment for our whole team, and we were all buzzing when Clayton relayed the news. But I also felt having it all come together and having him sign a piece of my design work was a big win for me personally and professionally, and it left me smiling from ear to ear for the rest of the day!
The Opening Ceremony itself was a momentous occasion. The organisers played a video which showcased all of the teams and clips of the construction phase with some pretty dramatic drum beating in the background. Each team had to take turns filing on stage, and as the shortest member of our team, I was at the beginning of the front row and so it was my duty to lead our whole team on and off the stage. This made me nervous, as I knew we had to get on and off quickly, and I had to know exactly where I was walking and when. Thank goodness I could call on my childhood experience as a chorister. Keep smiling. Eyes ahead. Strong posture. Walk briskly but smoothly. Find the centre mark. Walk just the right number of paces further so that we would be exactly in the centre of the stage. I think I did the job – phew!
After much cheering and celebration with the other competing teams, we went back to our respective houses and touring began. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was nervous about touring, because it had been some months since I did that last, during our public display week back in Wollongong. As we were walking over to give tours, I distinctly remember asking a couple of my fellow teammates, James and Dan, ‘How in depth are you going in explaining about our HVAC system?’ ‘Our roof has 104 Tractile solar panels, right?’, but after a couple of tours, I warmed up to it a bit.
Today was a great start to this next phase of the competition finals! Beginning touring, and touring other houses was an incredible experience, as it really showed me how much I’ve learned over the past 2+ years about houses, structure and architecture. It was rewarding to tour through the houses of some of the other teams to see the different directions this project could have taken and the various interpretations of the brief. I found it inspiring and to see what incredible things the other teams have accomplished in the same amount of time, and I’d like to think they felt the same about our house!
– Clare Smith, Communications Team