Abiboo Studio has given Mars a habitable makeover with a series of five self-sufficent cities complete with bio-domes for growing vegetation and an artificial mountain. Olivia Palamountain reports
Back in 2018, NASA chief scientist Jim Green told USA Today that humans will “absolutely” be on Mars in the future. The first person to go to the Red Planet is likely living today, he added. To date, however, no proof of past or present life has been found on the planet.
If Green is proven right, what will life on Mars look like? To explore this conundrum, the Mars Society, in association with the SONet network, created an architecture competition to put experts to the test, in a similar way to NASA’s 3D-Printed Habitat Centennial Challenge, which tasked contenders with designing homes for humans to live in on the Red Planet. Read Globetrender’s coverage here.
Working alongside academics and other members of SONet, the architects in the Mars Society competition developed structures that protect inhabitants from the radiation on Mars, ensure indirect access to sunlight, protect from potential impact from meteorites, and solve the atmospheric pressure difference between the inside and the outside of the buildings, says Design Boom.
Abiboo Studio, an award-winning design firm headquartered in Spain, the US and India, is one practice with an ambitious answer to life on Mars.
According to Design Boom, Abiboo chose the side of a cliff on mars to build a vertical city, with the design and construction systems a result of the planet’s harsh conditions.
Nüwa sits on the slope of a martian cliff with abundant water access (key to human survival on Mars), protected from radiation and exposed to indirect sunlight.
To create an emotional connection with Earth, the design team has included two vast, natural spaces called “green-domes” – one for recreation and the other for cultivation.