ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN FOR LIFE IN SPACE

摘要

Under an official design research contract with NASA for the early stage of the NASA International Space Station definition phase, the author generated an epistemic design approach to configure interiors of space habitats in microgravity. The absence of gravity in space alters the human bodily experience on which postural, perceptual, and motional changes are significant. From an architectural perspective, those transformations over the potential to generate interior configuration principles of space habitat in microgravity conditions. This paper analyzes those factors leading to such design principles introducing a taxonomy of transformative body motion envelopes. The body motion envelopes will be categorized in three modes: transit, transient, and stationary in relationship with motion generators, mobility aids and restraints. Those subdivisions will also be categorized into two types: active and passive. Once a basic taxonomy of human motions and their intrinsic geometry is established, it becomes possible to design a living habitat addressing particular orientation, mobility, and environmental interface issues. If weightlessness can modify bodily experiences, it will certainly call for the alteration of some ideas about space architecture, in particular, where concerns the convergence of culture and gravity.