A house made of wooden pallets, designed by Queensland engineering students, has survived its ultimate test.

The pallet house designed and built by Central Queensland University engineering students has come through Tropical Cyclone Marcia unscathed.

The house is a prototype for The Shelter Project, a plan for students to design and build new emergency shelters for use after natural disasters.

The pallet house at CQU’s Rockhampton North campus withstood wind gusts of up to 113km/h with no significant damage.

The success has prompted the students' to continue tweaking their exciting designs.

The CQU team is looking t way to build emergency shelters out of disused industrial materials, and employing disadvantaged workers in the construction.

The team has been in Melbourne this week as winners of the The Big Issue's Big Idea competition.

They have met with economists and analysts at Pricewaterhouse Coopers as part of their prize.

“It's been incredible to have senior business people look at our idea and go through our business plan,” team member Jessica Kahl said.

“They had a lot of suggestions we'd never thought of, like having a commercial side of the business, and putting a pallet house in each capital city to run as a café, and put income back into the not-for-profit side.”

She said the team would now work on new prototype pallet houses, potentially testing their liveability staying there overnight.

“There's still a lot of research we need to do - but the fact they're solid in a cyclone is definitely a good sign,” she said.