Archinect - Features

3D Printing, Artificial Intelligence, and Space Habitats: A Conversation with ICON’s Melodie Yashar

2024-03-12T16:00:00-04:00

As a ‘Space Architect’ working on the design and delivery of 3D printed habitats on the Moon and Mars, Melodie Yashar is aware that, even in space, 3D printing does not exist in a vacuum. Like any construction methodology, it requires a confluence of design intent, delivery systems, material science, and accessible economics.

In her role as Vice President of Building Design & Performance at the construction technologies company ICON, Yashar is overseeing the design and implementation of products across all these fields, with an immediate primary goal of establishing a more affordable and sustainable design and construction system. As Yashar outlined in her 2022 TED Talk, the lessons learned from such ambitious endeavors here on Earth can spark lines of inquiry for perhaps humanity’s ultimate unresolved ambitious endeavor: surviving and thriving beyond Earth itself.

Last week, Archinect’s Niall Patrick Walsh spoke with Yashar as ICON was in the process of unveiling a suite of new tec...

Ad Astra, Ab Hinc: Jakob Lange on BIG & NASA's Mars Dune Alpha Habitat and the Future of Interstellar Architecture

2021-12-22T11:43:00-05:00

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise…

The Bard’s characterization of 16th-century England from Richard II could serve as a mantra for those looking towards the future and to the Red Planet as a dazzling high-tec Paradisus where human settlements will eventually give way to sustained habitation as our century turns over into the next, and to — what some feel — will generate better and more just manmade civilizations in this galaxy and beyond.

Such is the case for many architects of a later vintage. Yet, among those vying for a place at the throne of interplanetary building, Bjarke Ingels Group has been one of the most successful. The firm has gained the official sanction of NASA to build the prototype for what may eventually become humankind’s first foray into life on a foreign planet.

While we have to start somewhere, and though small, BIG’s Mars Dune Alpha project could have monumental implications for the future of space building and humanity ...