Interior designer Dr Rob Backhouse, Principal and Chair at Hassell, has been named a 2026 QUT Outstanding Alumnus for his career designing some of the world's most significant workplaces, public spaces and urban precincts.
The honour was announced at the annual QUT Outstanding Alumni Awards last night (October 29) at the university's Gardens Point campus in Brisbane.
Dr Backhouse graduated from QUT in 1993 with a Bachelor of Built Environment in Interior Design.
Over 26 years at Hassell, he has led a diverse portfolio of internationally award-winning projects spanning complex workplaces, mixed-use developments and aviation environments in Australia and Asia. As a Board member, former Managing Director and Chair, he has helped shape the practices design philosophy and global recognition.
A Fellow of both the International Federation of Interior Architects/Designers and the Design Institute of Australia, he was awarded Australia's Interior Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) Gold Medal in 2017 and inducted into the DIA Hall of Fame in 2022 for his outstanding contribution to Australian design.
Dr Backhouse said his path to QUT began when he visited the university at the urging of his sister, who was studying podiatry at QUT.
"Why don't you come to QUT, visit the architecture school and find out more about it,” he recalled her saying.
"So I did, and the people there were great. I discovered there was a diversity of courses: Architecture, and urban and regional planning, landscape architecture, interior design, industrial design."
Dr Backhouse said his studies at QUT fostered a curiosity that has shaped his career ever since.
"I wasn't an exceptional student; I didn't always get exceptional grades. But the opportunity to learn and do new things was something that certainly I got out of university.”
Dr Backhouse said he was proud of the impact QUT graduates continued to have within the profession, including within Hassell.
"Four of our current seven board members – the partners that own the practice and are part of leading it – are QUT graduates," he said.
"One is an architecture graduate, one a landscape architecture graduate, and two of us are graduates of interior design."
Dr Backhouse also said during his studies at QUT he’d been fortunate to learn from “great tutors” who were professionals out practising in the architecture and design industry.
“It meant we got mentored around real projects and real design questions,” he said.
In the years since, he’s enjoyed paying back that sharing of expertise.
“I’ve always loved the opportunity to mentor a lot of the designers and graduates that come through our business,” he said.
“We believe in developing and mentoring people to be really great practitioners.”
Dr Backhouse said he would encourage current students and recent graduates to focus on finding work they are passionate about and to embrace a non-linear career path.
"My advice to current graduates of architecture or the built environment courses would really be to try and get some sense of the types of projects and with the types of clients you're most likely to excel with," he said.
"It's really working out how you find your path and try different things along the way until you find where you can have the greatest impact on the future."
Media contact: QUT Media, media@qut.edu.au
