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Foster, Ingels, Hassell, SOM… Major firms eventually addressed the question this project explored in 1993. Here is what they proposed — with their qualities, their budgets, and what one cannot help but notice.
This thesis was presented in 1993 at the School of Architecture, Paris Conflans. At that time, no major international firm had yet seriously addressed lunar architecture within a real commission. All projects below came later. The convergence of conclusions is, let us say, remarkable.
In January 2024, the Australian studio Hassell presents to the ESA a master plan for a colony of 144 people. It is one of the rare projects to address lunar architecture at the scale of a real human settlement — no longer a module, but a city.
Inflatable modules covered with 3D-printed regolith assemble into a network. The programme includes residential, agricultural greenhouses, restaurants and sports arenas. The convergence with the 1993 programme — quality of life, full programme, phasing — is striking.
SOM presents at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale its Moon Village concept in partnership with MIT and ESA. The project positions itself as "the first permanent human settlement on the lunar surface".
The approach relies on pressurised inflatable structures that can be covered with regolith. The project explores the governance and social organisation of a lunar colony — a subject rarely addressed elsewhere. The Venice Biennale as a framework underlines the changed status of space architecture: it is no longer science fiction.
In 2020, the Danish studio BIG by Bjarke Ingels teams up with ICON and SEArch+ to conceive Project Olympus, commissioned by NASA. The goal: an autonomous construction system capable of printing habitats, runways and roads from local regolith.
The 195 m² habitat is printed by a robot without human intervention. The two-metre walls protect against radiation and micro-meteorites. Bjarke Ingels speaks of « formgiving » — donner forme à ce qui n'a pas encore de forme — as a founding architectural challenge. NASA renewed the contract in 2023 until 2028.
In 2013, Norman Foster's agency is commissioned by the ESA to explore lunar construction by 3D printing. The project proposes a habitat for 4 people at the south pole, whose shell is printed in regolith by an autonomous robot on a previously deployed inflatable structure.
The form is a catenary dome with a hollow cellular structure — inspired by bird bones. Xavier De Kestelier summarises: « Notre habitation lunaire suit la même logique que notre travail en milieu extrême — exploiter les ressources locales. » A 1.5-tonne prototype validated the concept in a vacuum chamber.
Before Foster, before BIG, there were NASA's engineers. In 1977, Jesco von Puttkamer, director of long-range planning at Marshall Space Flight Center, published this vision of an expanding lunar base: geodesic dome, buried cylindrical modules, runways, rovers — all the ingredients that would return thirty years later in every project listed here.
This drawing, from a NASA study, is probably the first serious architectural representation of a permanent lunar base. It appears in Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century (W.W. Mendell, 1985) — referenced in the 1993 thesis bibliography.
Before all others, Buckminster Fuller laid the conceptual foundations of all lunar architecture without knowing it. His geodesic domes offer the best known strength-to-weight ratio — minimal envelope for maximum volume, manufacturable from local materials.
In 1967, the American pavilion in Montreal is a 76-metre geodesic sphere. His philosophy of « faire plus avec moins » and his concept of « Spaceship Earth » directly anticipate extraterrestrial constraints. Foster, BIG and Hassell are all heirs — knowingly or not.
Reviewing these projects, one thing is clear : the major architectural conclusions are always the same. South Pole. Régolite comme matériau. Construction robotisée. Full programme. Phasage progressif. What NASA drew in 1977, Foster in 2013, BIG in 2020, Hassell in 2024 — a Parisian thesis from 1993 had already established.
These firms worked with considerable budgets and institutional partnerships. They reached the same conclusions. What distinguishes the 1993 project is its inhabited dimension : interior sketches, lunar gestures, gardens, the public square, the staircase redesigned for 1/6g. Engineering is necessary. Architecture — the kind that questions what it means to dwell — is irreplaceable.