DESTINATION MOON

The Lunar Greenhouse combines the cultivation of fish with the growing of vegetables. Fish provide rich fertilizer for the plants and in return, the plants clean the water for the fish. The fish and the plants co-exist in a symbiotic relationship.

nutrient-rich water is pumped to the upper plant beds.

water follows gravity and provides plants with water and nutrients.

The freshly purified water is pumped back into the fish tank. The water is pumped through a bio filter to collect fish faeces, which are converted into nutrients by nutrifying

Structural Concept

The packed habitat has a diameter of 5 meters in order to be transported to the lunar surface. The construction basically consists of a structural helix, which is tightened by structural foam. The spiral itself consists of seven inflatable pipes, which are twisted into each other. A deployable U-profile keeps the spiral together and stabilizes it as a guide rail. After construction of the spiral, the habitat will be inflated to fit the shell and put into its final position.

Structure and Deployment of the Modules

Working model with tensile fabrics - Form finding with soap bubble experiments

Evaluation by Marc M. Cohen

This concept creates a linear array of units that begins at the upper edge of the crater wall and follows the slope down toward the center. The form of these habitation units derives from the structure, which consists of a spiral “spring.” The crew will deploy this spiral inside the inflatable, giving it form that provides volumes of varying shapes and sizes that can accommodate the living and working environment functions. The spiral will initially be flexible, but its foam filling will harden into a rigid shape. The model, made of plaster of Paris, expresses and explains the concept well, better than the elaborate CAD drawings.

“Daniela was one of the students that experimented with a lot models. Doing so, she developed an interesting concept for an inflatable structure, the form of which can be adjusted to functional requirements inside.” [Instructors]

The areas that need further attention include: The construction of the spiral needs to be further articulated, particularly the outer inflatable layer that would be filled with foam that solidifies; The starting and ending points of the main spiral are ambiguous in the sense that it is not clear why they are positioned as shown; Assuming that there is a reason for the location of the starting point, there does not appear to be a “stopping rule to determine or explain why it the spiral stops where it does on the inward slope of the crater.

The main difficulty posed by this sort of predominately linear plan is that it does not allow full and proper architectural programming to develop the relationships among functional areas and volumes. Typically the architect defines these relationships in the Adjacency Matrix. These relationships, at a minimum, would involve requirements for adjacency and access to functional areas, egress from these areas, and separation of incompatible functions.

The final presentation included one module offset from the main axis/spiral and two EVA/”Suitport” modules in line with the main axis, which shows some maturation from the earlier approach.