In the past week, I have been involved in touring the public trough Team UOW’s Desert Rose House. The tours I have given generally consist of explaining the sustainable construction materials we have used in the house and its various innovative systems, to the age-friendly design we have incorporated in the house’s architecture.
Gustav on the other hand, as a member of the Building Services Team, is able to go more in depth in the automation and power generation techniques used in the house, with his structural knowledge of the house taking a back seat.
When I did a combined tour with Gustav we are each able to step back and become a member of the audience to learn new things about this house and take notes for when we give tours.
I have felt an awesome sense of pride each and every time I am able to show off not only the parts of the house I worked on but more importantly the ones I didn’t, showing off the work of the entire team.
The diversity of skills and backgrounds of the team members is reflected in the diversity of interested people I have toured through our house.
There is no feeling quite like seeing someone’s eyes light up and blowing their mind by revealing a piece of tech they never knew existed. I have also been touring younger school groups through the house and, while at times it has been difficult to contain all of the excitement, it is an awesome feeling to be a part of educating the future generations. After the enormous effort the team has poured into the project over the past two years it is a very rewarding feeling to be able to finally share every detail of our creation with the world. Reflecting on the past two years I can say that I have definitely been inspired in sustainable and age-friendly design, and I hope that I may share some of this inspiration with others into the future.

– Sam Robertson, Gustav Peters, Building Services Team