The Solar Decathlon is a world wide competition that collaborates university students from a variety of disciplines to design and build a sustainable house of the future to support people living with dementia and other age-related conditions.
The University of Wollongong (UOW) competed in the 2018 Solar Decathlon that was held in Dubai. UOW had a name, Team Desert Rose, that was based on a flower that flourished in harsh conditions. I was part of the communications team and pitched initial logo ideas.
My design was based on my research into traditional Islamic geometric pattern design and architecture, contemporary logo designs found in Dubai, current UOW branding and flora native to the region. The idea was to combine ogee curve arches found in tradition islamic architecture to create petals for a desert rose flower. Serendipitous, the counter form created another flower that had the appearance of a Illawarra Flame tree flower, a flower native the Wollongong region.
The logo was also designed to be broken apart that can be used in future visual design systems. The petal and its distinctive ogee curve can be incorporated as a visual motif into a variety of branding scenarios.