Life Beyond Earth: a lunar village at the 2021 Architecture Biennale

What will life be like on the moon?

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) showed off their vision of a moon village at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.

The Biennale in a day: a short preview

The installation, entitled Life Beyond Earth, was developed in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA). The exhibit asks us to imagine a new type of architecture for space – a sustainable village able to host human life on the surface of the moon in the decades to come.

“Life Beyond Earth represents a paradigm shift in space architecture and offers insights discovered through international cross-sector cooperation,” says SOM senior designer, Daniel Inocente. “The challenges confronted here inspired new solutions and enabled us to envision a future for humanity beyond earth.”

The exhibit, located at the Corderie within the Arsenale complex, comprises two scale models and a film. The first model shows the entire lunar village, with its hi-tech dwellings and transport systems. The second is a close-up detail of a single housing module, in the shape of a silo.

“Life Beyond Earth envisions a long-term, self-sufficient lunar settlement that overcomes the constraints of an extreme environment,” says SOM associate director, Georgi Petrov. “The installation will educate and inspire an audience from all backgrounds, and offer a window into the future of space exploration.”

The installation is the result of an international, cross-sector initiative launched by ESA to explore the potential of inhabited environments on the moon. By expanding the territory of architecture, the project invites visitors to imagine future societies in new environments and to face the challenges of sustaining human life in the extreme conditions of space.

“Our partnership with ESA demonstrates how interdisciplinary collaboration can support international goals for space exploration,” says Colin Koop, SOM design partner. “It takes an unconventional approach to extraterrestrial habitat design, combining the expertise of the building and space industries, and applying knowledge from the realms of architecture, urban planning, science, commerce, and psychology.”