Project Description
FROM THE PROJECT TEAM:
SEArch (Space Exploration Architecture) and Clouds AO
(Clouds Architecture Office), an architecture and space research collective, were
awarded the $25,000 top prize Sunday, September 27th in the NASA and America
Makes sponsored competition 3D Printed Habitat Challenge for Mars. The competition asked teams
to design a habitat for four crew members while highlighting 3D printing techniques
and using material indigenous to Mars. Recognizing that water is the building
block to life, the team used a ‘follow
the water’ approach to conceptualize,
site and construct their design. ICE HOUSE was born from the imperative
to bring light and a connection to the outdoors into the vocabulary of Martian
architecture. The winning proposal stood out as one of the few entries not to
bury the habitat beneath regolith, instead mining the anticipated abundance of
subsurface ice in the northern regions to create a thin vertical ice shell
capable of protecting the interior habitat from radiation while celebrating
life above ground.
ICE
HOUSE was one
of 30 designs to advance to the third round finals from an original 162,
ultimately taking home first place ahead of entries from the European Space
Agency and international firm Foster + Partners. A 3D printed scaled model of
the design was presented to the public at the Maker’s Faire September 26th and
27th. Throughout the challenge, the team also experimented with 3D ice
prototyping, redefining traditional methods of 3D printing by instead relying
on the physics of phase transition between solid and vapor states. Some of the
results of this research and experimentation may be found at
http://www.marsicehouse.com.
The SEArch
/ Clouds AO team, with
ties to Pratt Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University,
Princeton University, and Parsons School of Design, is comprised of eight noted
designers including: Christina Ciardullo, Kelsey Lents, Jeffrey Montes, Michael
Morris (project team leader) and Melodie Yashar of SEArch, and Ostap
Rudakevych, Masayuki Sono, and Yuko Sono of Clouds AO. Consulting on the
project are fourteen leading space related subject matter experts (SME’s) comprised of scientists,
astrophysicists, geologists, structural and 3D printing engineers.
SEArch’s
collaboration builds
upon a ten-year portfolio combining teaching and practice through academic
space projects and research at Columbia University and Pratt institute in
association with the Human Factors division at NASA’s
Johnson Space Center (JSC). SEArch’s collective work has made
multiple presentations to international space and architectural symposiums and
design programs Including: NASA’s JSC Constellation
Program (Ciardullo, Lents), participation on the 2015 Caltech Challenge winning
design
(Montes), and the 2016 X-HAB Innovation Challenge award for Human Centered:
Designs for a Mars Transit Habitat at Pratt Institute (Morris), which evolved from
his 2014 participation as an SME in the Net Habitable Volume Consensus Session
for a Mars transit habitat for NASA in 2014.
Clouds
AO has produced a number of built and speculative projects distilled
from research and analysis that explores the intersection between conceptual
and experiential approaches to the built environment. Their work includes the
publication of ‘Third Sphere,’ an article describing a suspended city based on
the principle of the space elevator (Kerb Journal, 2012) and ‘Comet Runner’
which envisioned harnessing a comet for interplanetary exploration (Dezeen,
2015). In 2014, they were nominated for the Iakov Chernikhov Prize, and in 2015
Clouds AO received the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter Honor
Award.