Space Architecture and Designing the Future
Credit: Rick Guidice/NASA One of the things that has always interested me about design history is tracing back the threads that made the modern world what it is today. There is something fascinating about reading the façade of a building and tracing back its features to a long-forgotten art movement, or listening to the story of how curb cuts came to be on the podcast 99% Invisible (https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/curb-cuts/). However, it is easy to get so lost in the historical design decisions that changed everything to realize that choices of a similar magnitude are being made every day. And one area that I believe will change the future is the design of living spaces beyond Earth. Designing on Earth means designing buildings that fit into the patchwork quilt of the built environment. It means designing within a societal structure that has existed for tens of thousands of years. This can be beautiful- there is something poetic about continuing and contributing to a