BIG team up, ICON (3D-printed building company) and  SEArch+ (Space Exploration Architecture) have receives funding from NASA to work on called “Project Olympus” which aims to develop a lunar city.

NASA is continuing the work started in its "2018 3D-Printed Habitat Challenge" and "Project Olympus" aims to develop a way to create a 3D-printed infrastructure for living on the moon using materials found on its surface.

BIG team is not the only one to get in the space design game, and SOM, in conjunction with the European Space Agency, revealed their concept for a similar “Moon Village” early last year.
BIG has worked on multiple concepts for the Moon and Mars in the past several years. Its massive Mars Science City, meant to simulate the environmental conditions on Mars for use as a training ground and research station, is currently under construction in Dubai.

The partnership is part of NASA’s Artemis program, a literal moonshot to put humans on lunar turf by 2024, and the stepping stone to an eventual Mars mission. That means constructing a long-term habitat on the moon—Project Olympus, a 3D-printed, sustainable lunar habitat that will be capable of protecting inhabitants from exposure to radiation, extreme temperature differentials, and the constant pelting of micrometeors.

“Building on our experience with BIG’s Mars Science City. We are working to develop the first permanent structure on the Moon resilient to the hostile lunar environment where the cost of payload transportation requires rigorous efficiency. We have explored various building forms ideal for containing atmospheric pressure and optimized for protection from cosmic and solar radiation.

The habitat will be designed with the inherent redundancy required for extraterrestrial buildings, while also using groundbreaking robotic construction that uses only in-situ resources with zero waste left behind. With the technologies and efficiency parameters developed for the construction of extraterrestrial buildings, Project Olympus will also help us to build sustainably on planet Earth as we strive to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment.”
Martin Voelkle, a partner at BIG.

While scant information on the actual design and construction methodology of Project Olympus has been made public thus far, from the renderings, it looks like BIG has designed a network of short, toroidal structures that would be autonomously constructed and broken into different modules based on usage. Using the technology demonstrated in the 2018 competition, ICON will begin developing and testing prototypes of potential 3D printing techniques at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, using artificial lunar soil.

No construction timeline or budget for Project Olympus has been revealed yet.
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Bjarke Ingels (born in Copenhagen, in 1974) studied architecture at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and the School of Architecture of Barcelona, ​​obtaining his degree as an architect in 1998. He is the founder of the BIG architecture studio - (Bjarke Ingels Group), a studio founded in 2005, after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 with his former partner Julien de Smedt, whom he met while working at the prestigious OMA studio in Rotterdam.

Bjarke has designed and completed award-winning buildings worldwide, and currently, his studio is based with venues in Copenhagen and New York. His projects include The Mountain, a residential complex in Copenhagen, and the innovative Danish Maritime Museum in Elsinore.

With the PLOT study, he won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2004, and with BIG he has received numerous awards such as the ULI Award for Excellence in 2009. Other prizes are the Culture Prize of the Crown Prince of Denmark in 2011; Along with his architectural practice, Bjarke has taught at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University and Rice University and is an honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.

In 2018, Bjarke received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Dannebrog granted by Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II. He is a frequent public speaker and continues to give lectures at places such as TED, WIRED, AMCHAM, 10 Downing Street or the World Economic Forum. In 2018, Bjarke was appointed Chief Architectural Advisor by WeWork to advise and develop the design vision and language of the company for buildings, campuses and neighborhoods around the world.

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Published on: October 9, 2020
Cite: "BIG, ICON and SEArch+ team received funding from NASA to develop “PROJECT OLYMPUS”, a lunar city" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/big-icon-and-search-team-received-funding-nasa-develop-project-olympus-a-lunar-city> ISSN 1139-6415
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