Systems Programing

With the necessities of man scoped out in the Vitruvian Man diagrams the next step will be to look at the systems  integration. Once the systems integration is fully understood then the rest of the habitable program can be formulated.

This is a diagram which scopes the systems required for the Mars colony

10/3/10

Position: In Situ

The Colonization of Mars is a project which forces humanity to reconcile its relationship with the environment through the things it creates, namely architecture, from the raw resources available. The goal of the thesis is to work towards a symbiotic relationship between humanity and the environment rather than a parasitic one.

On Earth, buildings are built speculativly, wastefully, and often very poorly with regards to the environment. This is a result of the fact that humanity has established such primacy on the planet through the evolution of intelligence that there is no struggle for survival and growth continues unchecked like a cancer. Humanity on the whole maintains a parasitic relationship with the Earth; resources are leached from the environment and processed into things which usually only benefits humans and degrades the natural ecologies which gave rise to humanity in the first place.

Humanity has been following the same trajectory as all life, the manipulation of the environment in order to support more life, or in our case, to support more humans. The problem is that humans have achieved this thus far entirely parasitically. Our systems devour natural resources simply to further the cause of humanity alone rather than the advancement of life as a whole. As this process continues, humanity is snuffing out the rest of nature in its domination of the environment, and clearly this is a problem because humanity relies on the natural ecology of earth to sustain itself more than any other resource on the planet.

Architecture plays a central role in the relationship between humanity and the environment. We process and configure raw materials in to membranes which allow us to regulate the environment within them. These membranes stabilize the natural conditions of Earths fluctuating environment to more favorable conditions, thus ensuring the survival and productivity of humanity as whole. Similar the way our body regulates its internal conditions through the process called Homeostasis, allowing the complex chemistry of consciousness to occur continuously, architecture regulates environment around the body, allowing humans to function in their roles in the greater systems of civilization. This issue with architecture seems to lie in the reckless way humans extract and configure material to produce these membranes, and that that the membranes are configured to only benefit humanity and not the ecology of life as a whole.

The extreme conditions of Mars will require architectural designs to optimize themselves; considering the necessities of life, simplicity, frugality, and longevity. In essence, the colonization of Mars will force humanity to work. With an established colony on Mars humanity will have another realm in which to grow and adapt while creating a dialog between a global civilization and its frontier.

This thesis project will culminate with the design of the first permanent settlement which can house up to 60 researchers with the facilities to conduct extensive research on Mars, allowing for further expansion  and manipulation of the planet. The ultimate goal of a Mars Colony is to terraform the planet into a habitable environment which can harbor human and other kinds of diverse life.

Methodology:

This thesis is based on the foundation of Mars Direct, a mission architecture designed by Robert Zubrin, so the first task of the thesis will be to assess the plan and explain the context of what is going to be on the planet at the point the plan calls for the construction of the first base. The beauty is that the plan uses existing aerospace technology to get to Mars.

The plan begins with two interplanetary launches a year:

first, a small chemical processing plant, nuclear reactor, and Earth Return Vehicle are launched to Mars
the chemical processor produces rocket fuel and oxygen by mixing chemicals brought within it, with the gases present in the Martian atmosphere. The nuclear reactor will provide electricity for the habitation module and the battery powered rovers. The Earth Return Vehicle allows the crew to return to Earth in case of emergency or when the mission is complete.

second, after confirming the successful landing of the first payload, a first generation habitation module and crew of 4-6 are launched to Mars. This hab module connects to the chemical plant for oxygen and to the nuclear reactor for power and allows the crew to stay on the surface of Mars for up to two years. During this time the crew can explore, survey, conduct experiments and research on how to manufacture different materials from Mars's resources.

This cycle is repeated, sending habitation modules all of the the planet of Mars until one is selected for a permanent Mars settlement, at which point all concurrent habitation modules will be sent to the same site. The next set of second generation habs will be able to move on a rolling frame allowing them to aggregate into a complex of habs, they will also be sent with more specialized production equipment for the processing of Martian resources. This marks the stage when the construction of the first permanent base will be constructed, this is also the point at which this thesis will begin its exploration.

the plan to get to Mars described above is conveniently animated in this video:
Mars Direct Mission Architecture

Once the Mars Direct plan has been studied in detail, I will begin gathering information on the Martian environment and piece together as accurate as possible an assessment of the context for the base.
The base will have to be a phased construction, building slowly on the foundations of the previous structures. Resource processing and material manufacture will have to be tailored to the means available to the Mars colonists at that time. These constraints will be checked against research conducted and printed in the book The Case for Mars by Robert Zubrin.

For now, I will begin the research process by scoping the necessary requirements humans have of their built structures as a way to compile all the things which the Mars settlement will have to provide. To illustrate this point I have remade the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci to reflect humanity's modern understand of itself. Specifically, these diagrams will serve as a basis for the characteristics of humans which the architecture of Mars must fulfill.

Iteration 1

Iteration 2

Bibliography

These books provide the foundational backing for this thesis, they describe the reasons why, but also how to colonize Mars using existing technology.

Zubrin, Robert. The Case for Mars. 1997, The Free Press.

Zubrin, Robert. Entering Space: Creating a Space faring Civilization. 2000, Tarcher Press.

These books provide a historical analysis of civilizations describing why certain civilizations are more successful than others. They are relevant to this thesis in providing the reasons why humanity must always retain a relationship with a frontier in order to remain healthy. The frontier condition is one which is rapidly disappearing with the culmination of our global civilization.

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. 2005, W.W. Norton Company.

Diamond, Jared. How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. 2005, Penguin.

This book looks to re-imagine the process by which raw resource is processed into building material, this will be a key component in this Mars thesis as materials and production methods will have to be found to be able to build on Mars.

Kieran, Timberlake. Refabricating Architecture: How manufacturing methodologies are poised to transform building construction. 2003, McGraw-Hill Professional.

New Perspectives: Prologue

Until now, the framework of this thesis was founded on ideas about colonizing Mars and this brought about many problems in the way it was being received. The project's relevance to us, here and now, was not clear because Mars seems so far removed from our world, and for the most part this is absolutely true, Mars is a different planet. Whats the point of going to Mars?

The expressed purpose for doing an architecture based Mars project is that, relatively speaking, its's environmental conditions are so different and extreme to that of Earths, that it would force Architecture to return to its fundamental purpose. 

You might be asking yourself what is the fundamental purpose of Architecture, is there even such a thing and how can it be relevant now? 

These are the real questions which this thesis seeks to wrestle with, and hopefully, through a union of artistic intuitions and scientific methodologies; even provide a few guesses at the answers. 

Getting back to the issue with the framework of the thesis, the project will from now on be presented from the bottom up instead of top down; this thesis is about trying find out the fundamental purpose and relationship between humans and architecture, Mars is the exploration which will melt down our current preconceptions about what and why we should build down to a liquid from which we might reforge our relationship between the built environment and us here on Earth. 

Plan of Attack

The colonization of Mars is one which involves all spheres of human discipline, so to limit the project to a reasonable thesis which is focused on Architecture, the project will be about designing the first permanent settlement on Mars.

This raises an important question if this project is going to be grounded in reality; what comes before the first permanent settlement?

This thesis is built upon the foundations of Mars Direct, a strategic plan written by Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer working for Martin & Marietta aerospace corporation before it merged with Lockheed Martin. The core concept of the Mars Direct plan is; travel light and accomplish as much as possible on the surface using the resources available.

Mars Direct is a plan to settle Mars using existing aerospace technology on a relatively tight budget of thirty billion dollars on a ten year timeline. This plan results in the deployment of several permanent habitable outposts along with the necessary equipment for; fuel production, power generation, oxygen production, water extraction, lab experiments, and surveying. At the end of the first ten years Mars Direct will have brought a total of twenty people to the surface of Mars. From here, the Mars thesis project will build on the foundations of Mars Direct and form the first permanent settlement, a colony which can house up to one hundred persons and provide a foothold which will allow for expansion of even greater populations.

To begin the project however, a detailed study of Mars and the Mars Direct plan will be conducted in order to scope and identify the initial conditions of the project. This includes environmental data, resource data, site selection, and extensive knowledge of the equipment deployed by Mars Direct. Part of this process will include the production of graphics and diagrams which explain the Mars Direct plan.

Simultaneously, strategies for how to build architecture will be explored by studying the way simple organisms manipulate the resources around them to produce structures which ensure their propagation.

Limiting the project to the planning of the first permanent settlement narrows the playing field slightly, but the project is still largely the formation of a new kind of architecture for a new planet, incorporating all aspects of the profession, ranging from resource extraction and processing, to building systems integration, to urban planning. To illustrate this point these are the questions I am asking;

What will architecture on mars be made of?

How will people acquire this resource and process it into a building material? 

How will this material(s) be configured to produce an airtight membrane capable of supporting life? 

How is the actual construction carried out while wearing an insulated breathing suit? 

How do spaces made of this material aggregate, and how do they distribute life support?

Before starting to design the settlement, these questions must be answered. 

Thesis in 60 Seconds

Spreading life to Mars is a project which forces humanity to confront the fundamental requirements of Architecture which have been lost in the complex interactions between humans and matter.

The property which distinguishes Architecture from other kinds of matter is the fact that Architecture is matter which has been configured to contain life. In this fundamental sense, Architecture contains life, protects life, and allows life to propogate. Architecture is a membrane which filters the conditions of the environment into a habitable condition for the kind of life which built it.

The extreme environment of Mars will require the utmost care in life support systems integration, and renewal, in order to sustain life. Furthermore, these systems have to be manufactured from resources found on Mars.

Frugality, Function and Endurance will reign supreme. These factors are the properties which will constrain the development of Architecture on Mars. Under the umbrella of these factors, issues of life support, psycological factors, matierality, and manufacture must all be considered for the Architecture to function as it role of supporting and propagating life.

Here on Earth, Architecture produced by Humans has turned away from providing these fundamental requirements of Architecture because we have achieved such control of our enviornment that those requirements are apparently not important anymore.

This is completely false, the Architecture we build today causes Humans to develope cancer (asbestos) due to its materiality, it causes generations to degrade mentally (lack of motivation and creativity in youth), it causes a mad frenzy of consumerism, and worst of all it leads us to believe that humans exist on earth to live our thier lives for whatever pleasure they can extract from the resources found here on earth. In general, the built environment is degenerating our civilzation because it is built on a foundation of consumption rather than the propogation of life.

The only way to reverse this degeneration is to start building in way which supports life and helps to propagate it. This is the right thing to do because that is the fundamental principle of life; to propagate itself.

The Classification of Architecture

1.1 Architecture is transformed Solid State Matter, made; for the expressed purpose of containing, protecting, and propagating life.

a few paraphrased quotations, italics for emphasis

1.2 "Whether organic or inorganic, matter is all one. For the moment, vitalism (life) is a strict organism...only to be distinguished from preceding forces, to (by) transform raw matter into organic matter."

Deleuze, Gilles. The Fold - Leibniz and the Baroque: The Pleats of Matter 

1.3 "When a tree is configured to function as a wood column or beam, it is one set of properties cellulose that is selected for expression; or more properly, it is the geometry of vascular bundling that selects the properties of cellulose and conveys their felicitous rigidities and flexibilities to the macroscopic scale of the building itself.

On the other hand, when a tree is configured into a log for burning, it is the fire itself - that exists already inside the wood, only dormant or infinity slowed - that is selected for expression or release.

These two forms of expression, chemical and tectonic, are of exactly the same order of physical reality."

Kwinter, Sanford. The Atlas of Novel Tectonics: The Judo of Cold Combustion.

1.4 "The making of Architecture is a major coalescing activity in society, bringing together many flows into a single complex stream. In classical terms, architecture is a socially significant synthesis of the old antitheses: public/private, art/science, capital/labor." material/manufacture, resource/extraction, social/culture, political/ideology, individual/society, complexity/singularity,  just to add a few more.

Woods, Lebbeus. War and Architecture: Architecture is the Embodiment of Knowledge. 

1.5 

Architecture is 0.1

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Architecture is solid state; it is the complex matter composed of ideals, purpose, and atoms. This highly refined, and perhaps exotic form of matter is the result of inevitable interactions between highly specialized humanoid mammals, which call themselves Architects, and the naturally occurring elements found on the planet Earth.
Of all the exotic kinds of matter which are a result of interactions between these highly evolved mammals and the Earths natural resources, Architecture appears to be one of the most resilient forms. Architecture often outlasts the survival of the humans which created it, leaving behind a trace, either to be inherited by the next generation of humans, or left to the wastes of time until it is discovered or destroyed.
One of the most interesting properties of Architecture matter is its ability to record the properties of the creatures which created it. The purpose, elemental composition, and methodological procedure of construction, are all recorded in the solid state matter we call Architecture. Thus inevitably, the ideological drive of the creature is exposed by matter it creates. With these principles in mind it can be seen that generational trends found among humans are passed down through the spectrum of refined matter created by the species.
This is by no means a complete description of what architecture is, but, it is the beginning of an attempt at an objective perspective on the amalgam which is architecture.