Prefabrication experiments - 277 - fabricating worlds - 08 - Building on Mars

 

The race for space in the twentieth century accelerated the development of new technologies and materials. In architecture, the space race inspired prospective visions and construction systems conceived to colonize and terraform unforgiving climates and remote settings. The use of plastics, carbon fibres, powerful adhesives informed by advances in chemistry and military use, became iconically applied in architectural experiments and in futuristic capsule or pod aesthetics pushed by groups like the Japanese metabolists, Archigram and Future Systems. The race for space with its extraterrestrial imagery and narratives influenced a generation of architects to explore speculative forms, geometries and their application. Today another race is taking shape, the race for interplanetary exploration. Determined by new potentials in artificial intelligence driving both digital tools and processes, machines like rover explorers can be deployed equipped to explore and eventually build with little manpower. 

 

Outer space construction was recently explored in a design and process competition organized by NASA. Two finalists were awarded 700 000 US$ to conceive building systems for an eventual Mars colony.  AI Spacefactory, one of the finalists, promotes itself as a technological integrator that explores autonomous robots and leverages sustainable materials to build in any context or setting. Their proposal for NASA, the Mars Habitat «Marsha» combined additive manufacturing with composite materials to imagine a vertical oblong curved hive analogous to early brick firing kilns. This idealized compressive geometry relates to the material properties, which closely mimic concrete - high compressive strength.  The material invention is a hybrid fluid material that hardens once cured. A mixture of basalt (pulverized volcanic rock) and polymers (PLA) generates a hardened substance lighter than regular concrete and that can theoretically be locally sourced. Basalt concrete is not entirely new. Roman engineers employed pozzolanic volcanic ash to create a very durable concrete, water proof and resistant to freeze thaw cycles. The structural concept is a double-shell wall using an egg-like shape. The double skin's exterior layer insulates the interior shell and spaces from harsh exterior environments and extreme temperatures. The separation of the exterior bowed wall from the interior also frees the interior to be developed and arranged according to individualized needs and wants.

AI Spacefactory's proposal