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Have you wondered what living in a Mars colony the likes of what Elon Musk has proposed might look like? Wonder no longer. A group of architects from archinect led by Zeynep Ege Odabasi has envisioned a concept of what a Martian colony could look like that would have the entrepreneurial founder of SpaceX lining up to put his deposit down on a penthouse suite. The concept appears to be one of minimal environmental impact, that preserves the martian landscape and instead works with the topography of the surface instead of against it. They’re calling the concept Genesis V.2 referencing the biblical beginning of the world in a poetic stroke of man’s new beginning on a new world.
Working With Mars And Not Against It
Odabasi describes Genesis v.2 on archinect.com,
“Genesis v.2 is an extraterrestrial design prototype for a housing colony on Mars, designed by architects Burak Celik, Naz Kaplan and Zeynep Ege Odabasi. Within the framework of building a sustainable system that has the ability to respond to the current and upcoming conditions on the Red Planet, the project establishes an adaptable system that might adjust to new colonization scenarios for Mars. Through its circular form sitting on the natural craters of Mars with minimal footprint, and a unit system that is responsive to the growth of the colony as well as the crater size, the design represents a foreseeing solution towards approaching Martian settlements.”
The beautiful, clean, modern look which Odabasi calls “an incomplete aesthetic” is intended to depict man’s limited knowledge when it comes to building an enduring future of human habitation in space and emphasizes the unpredictability of the challenges these pioneers will undoubtedly face.
“With this concern, the project settles on craters which helps not only to implement its adjustable structure system but also locate on a relatively-low radiation zone that is of the greatest problems in the Martian environment. To elaborate more, a ring system occurring around a main production/circulation tower is developed and through adjusting the ring radius, the settlement can be located on craters with varying dimensions. “
Structurally speaking the team targeted a minimal footprint and flexed the design to adapt to differently sized craters, a design which could be reproduced reliably on other planetary bodies that suffer frequent impacts, such as our Moon or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
“The main structural stability is achieved only by the connection joints around the main ring that attaches to the crater and a screw-like end of the main tower that is nailed to the lowest level of the crater. These two, the outer ring onto which the units are placed and the central tower from which the production and circulation happens, are the backbones of the design development.”
Fascinatingly, this colonial complex isn’t designed to necessarily be static or permanent, it’s built with the concept of structural relocation in mind, should that be necessary due to population growth or even unforeseen challenges (e.g., unacceptably high radiation at a site, unstable geology, etc.,) That said, Zeynep explained that the structure would be easily detached, the main ring can then be expanded in order to allow for a longer path with more units and without any further modification or engineering intervention Genesis v.2 can reattach to a new crater of a different size.
The Genesis v.2 colony is built-in with the notion that the search for the goldilocks of colony sites will be extensive allowing for multiple variables to maximize efficiency based upon changes in the on-the-ground truth that NASA and Houston can’t predict.
“Diving deeper into the design development, we observe the main aim of the design, that is providing maximum possible production for the colony with the minimum resources. To achieve this goal, an adaptive/dynamic perspective for the settlement takes control, letting the structure respond to the changes in light, temperature, and other weather conditions through repositioning its parts. This ever-lasting search of Genesis v.2 for finding the best location is to serve the production within its system, where various sustainable energy technologies are used as well as biofuel production via algae farming.”
Check out some more of the amazing images Odabasi and her team created of this impressive vision of mankind’s future on the red planet and among the stars.
Image Credit:
Zeynep Ege Odabasi (Design Lead), Naz Kaplan (Design Lead), Burak Celik (Design Lead)
