BIG and 3D-printed building company ICON have revealed they are working on Project Olympus, which aims to develop robotic construction for the moon.
The architecture firm and SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture) were enlisted for the project by ICON after it received a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) government contract boosted with funding from NASA.
Called Project Olympus, it aims to develop a way to create a 3D-printed infrastructure for living on the moon using materials found on its surface.
Project Olympus aims to explore building on the moon
"With ICON we are pioneering new frontiers ? both materially, technologically and environmentally," said BIG founder Bjarke Ingels.
"To explain the power of architecture, 'formgiving' is the Danish word for design, which literally means to give form to that which has not yet been given form," Ingels added. "This becomes fundamentally clear when we venture beyond Earth and begin to imagine how we are going to build and live on entirely new worlds."
Working with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the team will use a simulant of moon soil to investigate a 3D-printable construction.
Structures will be built using robots
While other projects have suggested inflatables or metal structures, Project Olympus is intended to create a robust construction suited to the environment on the moon. The team said that by using 3D-printing and local materials it will also be more s...