December 06, 2010
Concepts for a Moon Capital in 2069
The Shift Boston Moon Capital Competition has announced a winner. The competition called on all architects, artists, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers and anyone to submit their most provocative wild visions about a capital for the moon in 2069. According to the organization some of the ideas are “way impossible”, says CNN. But that’s what the non-profit group Shift Boston aims to collect: ideas that change our perception on society and building. The competition is a typical architectural ‘what if’ competition — not meant to propose useful solutions but to broaden scope.
“When considering the future of design let’s start looking out into space. What if we could occupy the Moon only 100 years after our first visit there in July of 1969? Might the Moon become an independent, self-sustaining, and sovereign state? If so why not start designing for that new world now?”
There are some amazing concepts among the entries, such as a complete inflatable membrane city, a modular city enabling an organical growth of the new moon capital, and a proposal to for a moon cemetry. The winning idea by Bryna Andersen imagines a moon base surrounding a massive satellite dish that would collect solar energy and beam it back to Earth. Another finalist is envisioning the process of gradual colonization of the moon’s surface and represents this process with growing cluster settlements at different density and configurations. Other entries, designs and jury comments can be found at the competitions website.