Ad Astra : designing future archeologies

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Signature of Author: ____________________________________________________________ Alexander Kobald Department of Architecture January 17, 2019 Certified by:___________________________________________________________________ Jennifer Leung Lecturer Thesis Advisor Accepted by:___________________________________________________________________ Nasser Rabbat

Aga Khan Professor

Chair of the Department Committee on Graduate Students Submitted to the Department of Architecture in partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of Master of Architecture

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology February 2019

The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part

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Jennifer Leung

Lecturer, Department of Architecture Advisor

Joel Lamere

Assistant Professor of Architecture Reader

John Klein

Research Scientist of Architecture Reader

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This thesis proposes a methodology for the speculation of futures in architecture. The title “Ad Astra” translates as “to the stars”, a romantic harkening to the human ambition and desire to interrogate and surpass the physical and intellectual boundaries of our world. The subtitle, “Designing Future Archaeologies” alludes to a method of producing these futures and the design knowledge available in them.

This architecture is a story. It takes place aboard a spaceship carrying 800 passengers travelling for 800 years to the Trappist 1 system. This story is told through a narrative, describing a fictional history of a speculated future. The narrative is driven by three contrived events; pressure points that propel the plot of the story of the Theseus II; a ship/architecture that remakes itself from within in response to the changing social priorities and characters of its inhabitants.

This architecture is an imagined future, born from the contingencies,

variabilities and randomness of its speculated history. This future is designed; a future that seeks to produce knowledge even in an isolated time capsule of humanity in which “knowledge” is expected to atrophy. The knowledge produced aboard the Theseus II comes from within its isolated condition. Each of the scenarios has a speculated physical response, a disturbance to the status quo that is formed by the shifting material, social and epistemological priorities of the crew. Ultimately, this future is one of many possible futures; each the consequence of accumulated events whose physical and social consequences cannot be predicted. It is in this landscape of instability and randomness that there is a knowledge available to architecture and it is type of knowledge that will be necessary to design futures beyond human lifespans. The future is, fundamentally, contingent.

Thesis Supervisor: Jennifer W. Leung Lecturer, Department of Architecture

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Forward | The Primitive Spaceship Glossary of Terms

The Story | An Imagined Future History Ghost Ship | An Architecture of Knowledge Appendix | Timeline and Methodology Bibliography 9 15 17 69 101 116

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Ad Astra | Designing Future Archeolgies Alexander Kobald

Roof Wall Mound

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Figure 1: A diagram of the primitive hut (Gottfied Semper) and the primitive spaceship.

This project began from a dissatisfaction with the way architecture thinks about the production of futures. Whether through

technological projection or utopian prediction, architecture’s imagination of futures has been remarkably static. The internal forces of technology do not produce futures but instead offer the incremental intensification of the present. These projections of the present, that are sometimes assumed to be futures, are optimizations of the elements of the present that our society values but are unable to produce alternate values. This thesis also rejects the predicted future as a distant target of what the world could/would be. These predictions rely on the distance of time to differentiate themselves from the present but result in worlds locked into definite social priorities and values that are as static as the values in our present moment.

Architecture theory has internalized this static understanding of the world. Gottfried Semper and his canonical treatise “The Four Elements of Architecture” reveal the stasis embedded in the discipline. Semper’s primitive hut begins from a static program: architecture as shelter from a variable (and hostile) environment. Around this program the roof, the wall, the mound and the hearth represent different material, construction and political means to execute architecture. In each of these means additional static assumptions are made, further fixing the future possibilities of

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architecture to its present. The roof, the main element of shelter, implicitly embeds gravity into the architecture. Threats come from above, safety is below and the architectures structure becomes responsible for producing the space between. The wall is a political demarcation, fixing a libertarian ideology of personal space to the interior of the hut and requiring individual expression in the form of textile and paint to maintain that space. The mound places a requirement of architecture to elevate itself (and its occupants) above the earth it is built on and the social plane that surrounds it. Finally, the hearth as the center of the home, positions consumption at the center of the life that is imagined within the architecture. This is not meant to criticize Semper specifically but rather to draw attention to the specific sets of human priorities that have been explicitly and implicitly fixed in the definitions of architecture. The future methodology that is used in this project is one that understands human priorities to be unstable. Other disciplines recognize the value of this instability. Science fiction writers,

Hollywood directors and disaster scenario planners produce futures that emerge from an event: a contrived yet unpredictable outside influence that disrupts the status quo. In order to explore these instabilities, the primitive spaceship is the antithesis of the primitive hut. The ‘roof’ is replaced by a hull that contains an environment

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In order to explore what these primitive definitions mean, the ship is studied through a timespan beyond the human. The origin of the primitive spaceship is not important. Its launch and initial design that would be the obsession of modern architecture are replaced by the study of the ship during its voyage. Over the course of the voyage, contrived events operate on the ship with speculated responses that change the balance of human priorities. The ship becomes an artifact that is shaped by the accumulation of physical responses to the outside events. The artifact depends on the nature of the event and the order of the accumulated events. Changing orders and different scenarios produce different futures of the ship and different imaginings of the humans that occupy it. Variability and uncertainty are available to designers as knowledge. None of these futures is meant to be the ‘right’ one, but the understanding of the future as being a spectrum of possibilities begins to create a different understanding of architecture that might be resilient or sustainable. As architects begin to confront a world in which design problems exist at non-human scales and temporalities; this is an attitude that will become critical within the discipline.

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Special thanks to...

Joel Lamere for the encouragement when this project was just a crazy idea.

Jennifer Leung for seeing what this project could become and helping me see it too.

Sammy, Paul and Dangar for the help and advice. My family for their support and everyone who has made MIT

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Gravity Conditions Zero-G Directional Gravity Time ALD 400 ALD 200 ALD 50 ALD 0 ALD

Areas of the Ship

Habitation Ring

Observation Deck

Fuel Tank

(Years ) After Launch Day Date of the Ghost Ship encounter Beginning of the Population boom Moment of the Asteroid Strike Date of the Ships Departure from Earth

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“For all its material advantages, the sedentary life has left us edgy, unfulfilled.... We invest far-off places with a certain romance. This appeal, I suspect, has been meticulously crafted by natural selection

as an essential element in our survival. Long summers, mild winters, rich harvests, plentiful game—none of them lasts forever.

It is beyond our powers to predict the future. Catastrophic events have a way of sneaking up on us, of catching us unaware. Your own life, or your band’s, or even your species’ might be owed to a restless few—drawn, by a craving they can hardly articulate or understand, to undiscovered lands and new worlds.”

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Figure 2 (next page): Star map showing the route between Earth and the Trappist-1 system.

There is a strangeness to seeing your world from the outside. The ghost ship is like us in form, the same spine and propulsion drive, but the habitation ring that set off from Earth a mere five years before our own has transformed beyond recognition.

This world is an internal world, made of ten connected rotating habitation modules, a long pressurized tunnel and six cavernous fuel tanks (of which three are empty). Some of this world was made for us, and some of it we have made for ourselves. Spaces originally dimensioned to propel our capsule of humanity to five percent of the speed of light, have been habited and re-inhabited by those who came before us. For four hundred years, our perception has been shaped by the habitable boundaries of the vessel that carries us. This architecture is a story based on an imagined future aboard the spacecraft Theseus II. Our story begins halfway through its 800-year voyage to the Trappist-1 system, immediately following an encounter with its sister ship stranded along the way. This event, a moment of contact with a humanity the ship has long been separated from, provokes a speculation on an architecture that participates in a dynamic world. In this contrived environment, formerly static forces become variable producing alternative methods of design knowledge.

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Alpha Centuri Galaxy Core 50 ly 40 ly 30 ly 20 ly 10 ly HR6806 18 Sco 61 Cyg 70 Oph 10 light years Trappist 1 Sirius Sun

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Alpha Centuri Galaxy Core 50 ly 40 ly 30 ly 20 ly 10 ly HR6806 18 Sco 61 Cyg 70 Oph Trappist 1 Sirius Sun

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Asteroid Impact

Figure 3: Bridge Constructed following the asteroid impact

Blaring alarms wake the off-shift crew. The response is calm,

following practiced routines established during the first fifty years of the voyage.

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break in continuity

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Asteroid Impact

Figure 4: Diagram showing the effect of the damage to the ring’s center of mass.

A small asteroid had struck the habitation ring during the ship’s acceleration. The habitation ring was fractured with fingers of

aluminum superstructure left dangling between the two edges of the newly formed crescent.

The resulting shift of the ring’s center of mass required the rotation to be stopped, suspending gravity in all habitation modules.

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Asteroid Impact

Figure 5: Propaganda poster created during the asteroid impact reconstruction effort.

The crew mobilized, putting trained EVA specialists, welders and carpenters in teams to repair the damage. Many of the calls to action were nationalistic in tone. The response of the crew was to reorganize by labor speciality and created factions within the formerly homogenous social landscape of the crew.

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effects of shear

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Asteroid Impact

Figure 6: Diagram of the joint invented to use multiple length structural members.

The ship had launched with a catalog of spare parts intended to deal with incremental failure during the voyage. The specialists created new joints to utilize this wide variety of components to make repairs.

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Ring Modules Vertical Modules Scaffold Housing

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Asteroid Impact

Figure 7: Axonometric of the repaired habitation ring following the asteroid impact.

The asteroid impact was a physical trauma but its effects were felt in the society. The formerly continuous social ring, the public corridor, was interrupted by a tower made of the two damaged modules to rebalance the ring.

The social tone of the ship had changed. Difference was introduced in the modules. With difference, combined with the bonds formed in the reconstruction effort, the population organized itself into factions related to skills.

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FAR-out

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Figure 8: Diagram of material being extracted from the floor plates.

The miner emerged as a new occupation among the crew. The job was simple, scour the ship for any material that could be scavenged or melted down for new use.

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Figure 9: Interior rendering of the densified habitation module.

All the non-structural bulkheads were deconstructed while structural elements were mined for precious ounces of metal. Boundaries of personal space were dissolved, representing an unsustainable luxury as space and materials were stretched to accomodate the growing population.

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space planning

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Figure 10: Diagram showing the occupation of all internal surfaces in a zero-g environment.

Population Boom

The space conditions were so desperate that the officers stopped the habitation rings spin temporarily. This suspended the gravity produced by the rings rotation, allowing all exposed surfaces to be used as residence for the 6,000 –person crew; a 6-fold increase over the population the Theseus II launched with.

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Figure 11: Propoganda poster of the population boom era, recovered from the lower decks.

Paranoia had set in amongst the crew. The people feared what measures the officers would use next to control the population. Equally, they feared the measures their fellow citizens were taking to ensure they have enough as supplies dwindle. Former faction associations dissolved into a bifurcated society; those who had plenty and those who did not.

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Figure 12: Interior rendering of the entrance to the fuel tank party room.

Population Boom

With the pressures of overpopulation, the crew became inventive in claiming spaces for inhabitation. One of these zones, a fuel tank that was emptied to propel the Theseus to 5% of the speed of light has been repurposed.

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DJ Pit Zero-G Bar Entrance Platform

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Figure 13: Axonometric of the zero-g fuel tank environment, configured as a party room.

Population Boom

The Zero-G party room was an escape from the pressures of

overpopulation and survival expressed in zero gravity. Minimal work was done to outfit the tank due to the lack of available materials. The central module contained all that was needed; light, sound and drinks served in a plastic bag with a straw.

What started as a place of escape became a ritual. Each year the crew gathered to celebrate the anniversary of the launch of the Theseus II. A celebration of the moment our world was created.

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400 ALD

Gravity

Observation Deck

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Figure 14: Rendering of the ghost ship, seen in the distance, from the observation deck.

Ghost Ship Encounter

How did we end up here? Where are we going? Where did we come from?

There is a sense of the uncanny in seeing the world you occupy from the outside. Suspended in the Lagrange point of a nameless star 25 light-years from Earth sits Theseus I a twin of the vessel our crew has occupied for as long as anyone can remember (15 generations).

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400 ALD

Gravity

Observation Deck

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Figure 15: Rendering of the ghost ships habitation ring, seen from the observation deck.

The ghost ship is like us in form, the same spine and propulsion drive, but the habitation ring that set off from Earth a mere five years before our own is alien to our eyes.

What happened to them? How did they live? Was their life better then ours? The ghost ship spawned an obsessive introspection, a detailed study of our own life and the vessel that contains it.

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extra-vehicular activity

tether clip

handhold

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Figure 16: Diagram of the handhold and tether system deployed on the outside of the Thesues II.

Our first steps outside were tentative. We began exploring in the form of EVA spacewalks using handholds we attached to the outside of the ship, gaining knowledge in the form of observation and

experience.

It was easy to forget there was an outside world beyond the confines we had taken for granted for 400 years.

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Figure 17: Propaganda poster following the ghost ship encounter.

Ghost Ship Encounter

We became obsessed with the idea of gaining knowledge. Opportunities to learn emerged in the observation of the vast cosmos and the manipulation of our living quarters.

Our environment, both the universe we travel through and the vessel we travel in, became an infinite archive of potential knowledge awaiting scrutiny.

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Gravity

Observation Deck

Scale

400 ALD

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Figure 17: Section diagram of the observation deck.

The observation deck is located in the spine of the ship, bifurcating the 300m tunnel that connects the habitation ring to the empty fuel tank in the aft.

Following our moment of contact with a humanity we left long ago, we have pressurized the observation deck and the tunnel leading to it, allowing all members of the crew to take part in observing, what was mostly, nothing at all.

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Theseus I 400 ALD

Observation Deck

Habitation Ring Fuel Tank (Archive

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Figure 18: Diagram of the habitable extents of the Theseus II at the time of the ghost ship encounter.

Our world is an internal world, made of eight connected rotating habitation modules, a 300m pressurized tunnel and one (of six) cavernous empty fuel tank in the aft.

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Habitation Tower

Gravity Scale

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Figure 19: Section diagram of the habitation tower.

The habitation modules are in the bow of the ship. We have reconfigured the modules, connecting them to create a rotating 66-floor tower with a unique gravity condition on each floor. This strategy builds from the lesson we learned in the asteroid impact: that gravity can be manipulated in our world, and, with it, the architectural priorities and social plane it defines.

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400 ALD

Gravity

Habitation Tower

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Figure 20: Interior rendering of the cabins in the habitation tower.

The rooms are simple; two beds per room that can be occupied by a family or by roommates depending on age. Different gravity conditions allow different ages of the crew to live comfortably.

Each room has a framed view of space, different from the panoramic views in the observation deck. The rooms are arrayed along the perimeter of the module, each identical, enclosing an internal working courtyard.

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Figure 21: Interior rendering of the hydroponic garden.

Work happens in the forms of food production, food preperation and material reclamation. A forge, a community kitchen and a

hydroponic farm produce three workshops that repeat two times per module.

With each floor having a unique gravity, the products of the workshop and the people making them form a living laboratory; artifacts of the forces of their making.

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The Archive

Gravity Scale

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Figure 22: Section diagram of the archive constructed in one of the empty fuel tanks.

The knowledge produced through collected observations and the artifacts are stored in the archive, located in one of the empty fuel tanks in the aft of the ship.

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Figure 23: Interior rendering of the archive.

The archive is a zero-g environment with densely packed shelves collecting containers of knowledge. A central atrium creates a space for the columns of knowledge to be studied and for meaning to be extracted and debated.

In this environment, extracted columns of knowledge become objects of orientation, guiding the navigation of the space.

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Figure 24: Section diagram of the three zones of habitation aboard the ship

Figure 25 (next page): Section diagram of the three zones of habitation aboard the ship (larger scale)

Some of this world was made for us, and some of it we have made for ourselves. Spaces, originally dimensioned to propel our capsule of humanity to five percent of the speed of light, have been habited and re-inhabited by those who came before us.

Largely, life on the ship occurs in three containers; the reconfigured habitation modules, the recontextualized observation deck and the repurposed fuel tank. In the era following the ghost ship, each of these containers has been remade in the pursuit of the production, observation and collection of knowledge.

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Figure 26: Elevation drawing of the habitation tower showing the varying gravity related to the distance from the center of rotation.

The ghost ship refers to the physical architecture of the Theseus II following its encounter with its twin. This is the design project of this thesis; the design of an environment dedicated to the observation, production and collection of knowledge. The formal language of the ship is largely platonic, taking place within the cylinders and spheres that are formed by the pressure of the environment they contain. However, the architecture of the ghost ship reorganizes these components, explores new ways of relating the interior of the environment they contain and the vastness of the hostile surroundings and reconfigurations of the interior. This study begins with the reorganization of the habitation modules from their initial organization as a ring with equal gravity and program throughout to a tower that produces a multitude of gravities and programs.

The habitation tower is a reordering of the original habitation ring. It is made up of 66 floors, contained in 11 modules organized in a tower. The tower rotates around the middle floor, producing a variable gravity condition on each floor.

The force of gravity and its influence on life and materials becomes an object of study aboard the ship. The floors range from two and a half times the force of Earth’s gravity to nearly zero-g. Demographics vary greatly along the tower. Age, health occupation and personal preference all influence which floors are most comfortable.

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Figure 27: Section and elevation drawings of the habitation module.

The module itself is made up of six floors with five cabins per floor. The module is enclosed by the same structural frame and skin that has protected a habitable environment for the 400 years of the ship’s voyage.

Each cabin is identical with a desk and two beds as well as personal storage. The cabins are occupied by either families or roommates, depending on age of the occupants. The rooms along the perimeter of the module, each with a framed view of space through a portal above the desk, enclose a central courtyard that is the place of work.

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Figure 28: Axonometric drawing of the initial habitation configuration (bottom) and the ghost ship configuration and cabin (middle & top)

The living laboratory is a reorientation of the original housing units. When the Theseus II first launched, the units were connected in a rotating ring producing gravity through rotation. Gravity organized the homogenous program of the ring. A continuous social corridor connected the units with a hydroponic garden along one of the walls. Above and below the corridor were the private cabins with a staircase occupying the other wall of the passage.

The reoriented module is organized by work activity. Three working programs are repeated twice per module, 22 times over the entire habitation structure. These programs are in the center of the module, near the utility cores, and are connected by the same stair space, reoriented to connect the towers’ floors.

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Figure 29: Detail section drawings of the habitation module.

The exterior structure of the module is kept the same. The primary structural load is pressure from the interior atmosphere. A radially symmetric frame supports an aluminum skin that is stretched by the 08 bar pressure. Portals add additional perforations to the aluminum skin responding to the demands of the crew for each cabin to have a view of the outside cosmos.

The second load acting on the modules is artifical gravity, produced by rotating the tower around its center. This additional load required bracing that is placed on the forge workshop layer. The forge

then forms the support for the hydroponic farm above and the community kitchen below.

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Forge Hydroponic Farm

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Figure 30: Axonometric drawings of the working courtyard configurations.

The place of work is a central community place, occupying the space of the communal corridor by the original orientation. Work comes in three forms; work that supports community, work that supports the ship, and work that supports survival.

Each of these work activities is repeated twice per module, 22 time over the varying gravity of the tower. The variable gravity combined with the variety of work activities create another frame of knowledge; where the work of living and the resulting artifacts become objects of study.

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Figure 31: Detailed axonometric of the community kitchen courtyard.

The community kitchen is occupied in shifts. While each floor of the habitation tower is connected, the typical social circles of the crew are divided floor-by-floor and then in groups of three floors (10 and 30 people respectively) associated with the repeating modules of work. These sub-groups are villages within the tower and occupy the community kitchen throughout the day.

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Figure 32: Detailed axonometric of the forge courtyard.

The central work activity is the forge, a floor dedicated to recasting and reforming the raw material of the ship. This program is within a truss structure supporting the hydroponic farm above and the community kitchen below. A large electrostatic oven is used to melt down materials ranging from soft plastics to space-age titanium. The kiln is the antithesis of the hearth found on earth, a place of renewal rather then a place of consumption.

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Figure 33: Detailed axonometric of the hydroponic farm courtyard.

The hydroponic farm is a sculptural object in the courtyard, configured to produce as much growing area as possible for the food needed for the crew’s survival. The sinusoidal form creates interior and exterior pockets around lights sources that stimulate the growth of the plants. The hydroponic farm is more labor intensive then the forge, requiring planting, gardening and harvesting to maintain the ship’s food supply.

The plants are grown in water, eliminating the need for fertilized soils and providing a fresh water buffer that keeps the water reserves of the ship from stagnating.

The farm has psychological as well as tangible value. The intense green garden and its organic sculptural form is a welcome reprive from the artificiality of the other materials in the ship.

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Figure 34: Section and elevation drawings of the observation deck.

The observation deck was the first ghost ship architecture. Built in anticipation of the encounter with the Theseus II’s sister ship, it is built to provide a panoramic experience of space. The intention was to create an experience of the vastness of the outside world and specifically, the fragility of the sister ship on this vast backdrop. The deck is a place of observation and experience, gathering data about the outside world and providing the sensation of immersion. A solitary experience can be overwhelming or serene depending on the individual. Often the observation deck is filled with groups using telescopes or sensors that have been built to peer deeper into the void, sharing observations and speculations on what might be out there

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Figure 35: Axonometric drawings showing the process of construction for the observation deck.

The observation deck is made from a repurposed housing module that has been inserted into the ship’s spine. The transparent envelope was made using reclaimed plastics that had become brittle after 300 years of age, to produce a film that was inserted into the structural frame of the module.

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Figure 36: Axonometric drawing of the final form of the habitation module.

Pressurizing the module gave the deck its final form with the films bulges allowing observors to get closer to the vacuum of space.

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Figure 37: Section details of the observation deck envelope.

The observation deck is the truest expression of the forces that govern the tectonics of the ship. The flexible film bulges between the primary structural elements of the module, exposing the fragility of the habitable environment. The bulges allow the observer to push the edges of this habitable boundary with the thinness of the film juxtaposed with the robust aluminum structure.

The deck is pressurized but not heated. Visitors must wear thermal suits but can lift the lids of their helmets, seeing an unmitigated view of the external world.

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Figure 38: Section diagrams of the fuel tank configured as an archive.

The archive is the latest portion of the ghost ship architecture. As observations and artifacts of knowledge have been made, the need to create an architecture to collect knowledge grew. The collection of knowledge is important to enable the construction of meaning from the archive. The empty fuel tank in the aft of the ship offers the space for this collection. In service of this purpose the archive is made up of two elements: the shelf as a container for knowledge, and the atrium as a place for the experience of knowledge and the construction of meaning.

The physical architecture is symbolic. The shelves illustrate an understanding of knowledge in an abstract form; a placeholder for a deeper conversation about what constitutes and artifact of knowledge. Shelves represent the expandability of an archive while the cylindrical stacks represent the ambition of knowledge density for the final collection and a means of categorizing the discreet volumes.

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Fuel Tank (200 ALD) Fuel Tank (250 ALD)

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Figure 39: Axonometric drawings showing the progressive development of the fuel tank as a habitable space.

The Archive is built in one of the empty fuel tanks that propelled the Theseus II to 5% of the speed of light. The fuel tanks were formed by engineers using the calculations that first took humanity to the stars.

The tank has a history, having first been used as an escape from the claustrophobic habitation modules. Its 36m interior diameter is by far the most open space in the ship. The first use celebrated the openness, using a central cluster of lights and speakers to transform the interior into a zero-g party space. When the population grew, a lightweight hydroponic farm was constructed on a frame attached to the hexagonal baffles that had first been used to contain the pressure of the fuel.

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Figure 40: Axonometric drawing of the movable cylindrical shelving system in the archive.

The shelves are clustered in the hexagonal structure that was utilized by the hydroponic farm and the structure of the original fuel tank. This geometry optimizes the density of the shelves to contain as much information as possible.

The cylindrical stacks are on rails, allowing them to be pulled into a zero-g atrium in the center. The atrium is place for the construction of meaning from the knowledge collected. The open space and rails allow containers to be pulled out on their own or in combination to curate the exposure of knowledge. The shelves extended become objects of orientation in the otherwise zero-g non-orientable space.

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Figure 41: Section detail of the shelving units in the archive.

The cylindrical stacks contain two forms of knowledge; artifacts in hermetically sealed boxes on the interior and the writings containing observations and procedures on the outside. These are symbolic, placeholders for a medium that has yet to be invented.

The design allows the occupation of the interior of the shelves when they are not extended. The interior houses the artifacts, a collection of corporeal knowledge. The abstract knowledge, represented in the form of books, are only accessible when the shelf is extended into the atrium.

The shelves are identical cylinders that are mounted on rails that run on a hexagonal vertical steel structure. The hexagonal pattern is a relic of the original baffle structure of the fuel tank while the vertical aluminum members are repurposed from the vertical farm that formerly occupied the tank. The fuel tank is an artifact in its own right, the physical accumulation resulting from the history of social priorities of the crew throughout the voyage of the ship.

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Launch Day | 0

600 yld 400 yld 200 yld

Housing Ring 1-5 people Spine 10 people Fuel T

ank

100+ people

Asteroid Impact

Population Boom

Ghost Ship

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The following page shows a set of four timelines that have used future building strategies from a variety of disciplines. The first (following page, left) is a planning timeline. Familiar to architects, urban planners and

military planners, the planning timeline sets the known conditions in a linear sequence. The mission start, known mission parameters and targets are listed here along with demarcations of generations and material degradation. If no external events were to act on the ship this is the timeline that would describe the ship’s narrative.

The second diagram is a narrative timeline. Borrowed from the science fiction genre, this timeline imagines three external events that serve as plot points to accelerate the story of the ship. The event’s are placed in an order that leads to accumulated changes in the occupation of the ship.

The third diagram is a parallel narrative timeline. This strategy is a favorite of filmmakers and novelists and imagines each of the events of the narrative timeline to occur in parallel. This organization places the event in relation to the overall lifespan of the mission and not just between the events

themselves. This strategy allows the temporal consequences of each event to be designed as well as the spread of the events consequences throughout the ship.

The fourth diagram is a branching timeline. This timeline borrows from the scenario planning discipline in which each event has an imagined multitude of consequences. This strategy allows for the projection and imagination of a multitude of futures, each as probable as the next. It is the variety of futures available that is design knowledge, not the discovery of the ‘right’ one. In fact, it is considered unlikely that any of the specific futures in this study would be a total imagining of the voyage of the Theseus II.

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600 yld 200 yld Launch Day | 0 400 yld 1st generation 20th generation 10th generation

Theseus 1 departs Earth

Ship decelerates

PVC plastics aboard the ship begin to degrade Ship passes star 61 CYG Ship accelerates at < 0.1g

Ship accelerates to 5% of the speed of light. 50% of fuel is consumed

Theseus 1 begins deceleration

200 yld

400 yld

600 yld Launch Day | 0

In the narrative form, each event is a scene in the story, advancing the plot of the Theseus remaking itself. In this case, the asteroid impact represents a physical trauma, suddenly disrupting the routine and physical form

The population boom is an internal pressure on the ship. As the population grows, new ways of occupying the finite volume and living spaces of the ship must be considered. While running out of space, the inhabitants begin spreading out over the ship, exploring the spine and emptying fuel tanks to find places to grow food and live. The population boom is an internal pressure on the ship. As the population grows, new ways of occupying the finite volume and living spaces of the ship must be considered. While running out of space, the inhabitants begin spreading out over the ship, exploring the spine and emptying fuel tanks to find places to grow food and live.

Ghost Ship Population Boom Asteroid Impact

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800 yld 600 yld 400 yld 200 yld

Asteroid is captured by the ship, creating a material surplus.

Society bifurcates into two classes: the working class who live as densely as possible as they create food for survival and the luxury class who gain luxury by gaining independent security.

After encountering the sister ship, half the crew demands to return to Earth. The escape pods, built for this purpose, are jettisoned while the remaining crew continues towards Trappist-1.

The crew demands a halt to the ship to return to the ghost ship. The consumption of fuel to circle back means the end to the mission as the Theseus 1 joins its twin in a decaying orbit around the nameless star. Gravity is deactivated, allowing all surfaces to be used for living. With the resources overextended, the slightest decrease in crop yield leads to the missions failure.

The structure of the ship is mined in order to produce more volume for the expanding crew. New modules are built out of ad-hoc materials, similar in form and scale to the originals but alien in the quality of construction.

Partial destruction to the habitation ring. Two modules are turned 90 degrees to rebalance the habitation ring.

Contact with the sister ship creates a social tone of doubt in the survival of their own ship. In response, the ship is reorganized as a machine to produce knowledge, studying food production, material fabrication and human bodies in variable gravity and storing the observations in a vast archive in the emptying fuel tanks.

Ghost Ship Population Boom 800 yld 600 yld 400 yld 200 yld Frame 2 | 10 people The crew is adept in zero-g having performed the repairs to the ship in spacewalks. Recreation takes place in the spine of the ship in the form of competitive sport. Teams, based on the factions that define labor, compete against eachother in a zero-g polo game. factions or guilds around the labor required to repair the ship.

Frame 2 | 10 people The ghost ship is like us in form. In the lagrange point of a nameless star, the same propulsion drive and fuel stores give form to the ship. In our fleeting glimpse, we could see the habitation ring, distorted by a 400 year social evolution alien to our own.

Frame 3 | 100+ people The crew celebrates rituals as a means of building a social identity. As the fuel tanks empty, the crew celebrates the 100 year anniversary of the ships launch in one of the empty tanks converted to a temple.

Frame 2 | 10 people Seperating the social classes is a gate way in the spine of the ship. Two airlocks and 20 meters of the cold vacuum of space seperate the working class from the independent class.

Frame 1 | 1-5 people Inspired by their contact with the sister ship, the crew began to reorder the living modules of the ship. With each floor creating a unique gravity condition, the habitation tower became a lab. The effects of gravity on creating materials, growing crops and on the human body became objects of study.

Frame 3 | 100+ people The emptying fuel tanks are repurposed as farms. With foodsupplies dwindling, the crew uses some of the fuel to be converted into oxygen, pressurizing the fueltanks. Material is mined from the structure of the spine and the livingquarters of the ship to create morehydropaunic growing racks.

Frame 3 | 100+ people As the body of knowledge collected by the crew grew, so too did the archive. Occupying the nearly empty fuel tanks, the archive was full of material samples, documented variables and the bodies of the forgers in silos of knowledge. As a collective the crew worked on a large mural in the archives atrium, constructing the histor of the ship.

Frame 1 | 1-5 people Time has eroded the social contract. The crew, now in its 4th generation, has abandoned the birth limits of their parents. With the population growing, thehabitation ring has bifurcated; with maximum density on one side and luxury, expressed through self-reliance, on the other.

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A

Asteroid Impact

B

Population Boom

C

Ghost Ship Encounter In a narrative format the order of events matters

as much as the events themselves. Alternative futures exist in alternative orders of events.

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The narrative is a design project as well as the background for design scenarios. The timelines demonstrate the variety of temporalities, scales of consequence and items of consideration in the narrative. Each of these are used to provide entry points in the design of an object that will extend beyond the human lifespans temporal frame.

The narrative events that drive the plot are also available as design elements. In this case, the three events chosen are meant to act as pressure points on separate priorities of the humans aboard the ship. The Asteroid Impact (event A), is a physical trauma that disrupts the physical character of the ship. The response is physical as well, demanding repairs and a reconfiguration that introduces variability into a physical environment that was originally homogenous. The Population Boom (event B) represents an internal pressure and a failure of the social order. The response changes the internal relations of the crew, sowing seeds of distrust that lead to social inequality. The Ghost Ship Encounter (event C) is a spiritual trigger, a moment that challenges the individual understanding of the self and its relationship to the outside world. The consequence is epistemological, a desire to pursue knowledge in an environment in which knowledge is expected to atrophy.

The order of these events matter, and reordering the events produces

different futures that also represent valid design knowledge. The order of this thesis was chosen to provide distance between the architecture of knowledge (the designed response to scenario C) and the present. Consequently, C is the last event with A and B serving as turning points that remove the future from the present. The other orders of events have been explored diagrammatically here.

The Order of Events Matters

Figure 47: Diagram showing the order of events as explored in this thesis.

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B

Population Boom

C

Ghost Ship Encounter

A

Asteroid Impact

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C

Ghost Ship Encounter

B

Population Boom

A

Asteroid Impact

This sequence densifies the ring before destroying part of the living mass. The void is then reclaimed

to place a temple.

Figure 49: Diagram showing an alternate order of events as explored in this thesis.

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The following pages show the timeline of the thesis. This timeline overlays the diagrams shown earlier into an interwoven speculated history in which the future of the Theseus II is selected as one of many possible futures.

The timeline was printed as a booklet and given to the jury during the presentation of the thesis as a road map of what the project is and how it was made.

The Narrative of Ad Astra

Figure 50 (page 110 - 115): A detailed timeline of the thesis narrative.

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Theseus 1 departs Earth PVC plastics aboard the ship begin to degrade

Ghost Ship Encount

er

Population Boom

Ast

er

oid Impact

Theseus 1 accelerates to 5% of the speed of light. 50% of fuel is consumed

Launch Day | 0 ALD

50 ALD

100 ALD

150 ALD

200 ALD

300 ALD

350 ALD

400 ALD

Frame 2 | 10 people The crew is adept in zero-g having performed the repairs to the ship in spacewalks. Recreation takes place in the spine of the ship in the form of competitive sport. Teams, based on the factions that define labor, compete against eachother in a zero-g polo game.

Frame 2 | 10 people

The ghost ship is like us in form. In the lagrange point of a nameless star, the same propulsion drive and fuel stores give form to the ship. In our fleeting glimpse, we could see the habitation ring, distorted by a 400 year social evolution alien to our own.

Frame 1 | 1-5 people

Inspired by their contact with the sister ship, the crew began to reorder the living modules of the ship. With each floor creating a unique gravity condition, the habitation tower became a lab. The effects of gravity on creating materials, growing crops and on the human body became objects of study. Frame 3 | 100+ people

As the body of knowledge collected by the crew grew, so too did the archive. Occupying the nearly empty fuel tanks, the archive was full of material samples, documented variables and the bodies of the forgers in silos of knowledge. As a collective the crew worked on a large mural in the archives atrium, constructing the history of the ship.

The asteroid impact disrupts the habitation ring. One module is completely destroyed and two other modules must be turned 90 degrees to rebalance the center of mass. The crew organizes by skill, created factions or guilds around the labor required to repair the ship.

Time has eroded the social contract. The crew, now in its 4th generation, has abandoned the birth limits of their parents. With the

population growing, thehabitation ring has bifurcated; with maximum density on one side and luxury, expressed through self-reliance, on the other.

Frame 3 | 100+ people

The emptying fuel tanks are repurposed as farms. With foodsupplies dwindling, the crew uses some of the fuel to be converted into oxygen, pressurizing the fueltanks. Material is mined from the structure of the spine and the livingquarters of the ship to create more hydropaunic growing racks.

Gravity is deactivated, allowing all surfaces to be used for living. With the resources overextended, the slightest decrease in crop yield leads to the mission’s failure.

Society bifurcates into two classes: the working class who live as densely as possible as they create food for survival and the luxury class who gain luxury by gaining

independent security. Contact with the sister ship creates a social tone of doubt in the survival of their own ship. _{In response, the ship is reorganized as a machine to produce knowledge, studying food} production, material fabrication and human bodies in variable gravity and storing the observations in a vast archive in the emptying fuel tanks.

The crew demands a halt to the ship to return to the ghost ship. The consumption of fuel to circle back means the end to the mission as the Theseus 1 joins its twin in a decaying orbit around the nameless star.

In the narrative form, each event is a scene in the story, advancing the plot of the Theseus remaking itself. In this first event, an asteroid impacts the ship 50 years into the voyage. This event represents a physical trauma suddenly disrupting the routine and physical form of the ship.

The population boom is an internal pressure on the ship. As the population grows, new ways of occupying the finite volume and living spaces of the ship must be considered. While running out of space, the inhabitants begin spreading out over the ship, exploring the spine and emptying fuel tanks to find places to grow food and live.

The Ghost Ship is a spiritual pressure, provoking a response of introspection and curiosity. What happened to them? Could it happen to us? The crews response is an architecture that reexamines the forces of its making.