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B03 cover pm 1 Page 14:59 21/1/11 hw:1 BLUEPRINT ISSUE 300 • NELLY BEN HAYOUN • NASA • REACTION ENGINES • ROBERT T BIGELOW • DAVA NEWMAN • FOSTER + PARTNERS • SCALED COMPOSITES • REGINA PELDSZUS • STUDIO DROR • ONDREJ DOULE • MARCH 2011 • £5.50 TE_Advert UR 08_12 Blueprint.indd 1 16/12/10 2:52 PM UUR Blueprint FP.indd 1 21/1/11 09:28:07 BPS_BP_0311DLEv.7.qxd:Layout 1 12/30/10 1:32 PM Page 1

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BOOKSHOP/GALLERY DISTRIBUTION Central Books T. ++44 (0)20 8986 4854 Circolo San Francisco SUBSCRIPTIONS Woven WireWoven Fabric Wire Fabric SINGLE ISSUE PRICE: UK £5.50; EU =C11.50; US $20.00; ROW $25.50 ONE YEAR: UK £52; EU =C124.50; US $184.50; ROW $224.50 Projects include multi-story wire mesh draperies for hotels, TWO YEAR: UK £88; EU =C218; US $325; ROW $393 auditoriums, and casinos; curved dividers for visual BLUEPRINT DIGITAL ONE YEAR: UK £46.84; EU =C55.33; US $79.44 merchandising; window treatments for private homes; Blueprint Customer Services: [email protected] Subscriptions Hotline: ++44 (0)845 155 1845 (local rate) safety & blast mitigation screening; sculptural forms for Fax: ++44 (0)20 8269 7877 E: [email protected] Blueprint Subscriptions, WMI Trade Media, Progressive House, P.O Box 99, Sidcup, urban gardens; decorative interior/exterior wall coverings; DA15 0EN, UK. Subscribe online at www.getthatmag.com solar shading for buildings and parking garages; aviary WORLD MARKET INTELLIGENCE LTD (ISSN 0268-4926) screening for animal habitats, and see-through appealing John Carpenter House Blueprint is published monthly for £52/year by World Market Intelligence Ltd, a Progressive Media Group 7 Carmelite Street company, John Carpenter House, 7 Carmelite Street, barriers for commercial security. Whatever the application, London, EC4Y 0BS London, EC4Y 0BS, England. T. +44 (0) 20 7936 6400 No responsibility can be accepted for unsolicited let us help you realize your creative vision. F. +44 (0) 20 7936 6813 manuscripts or photographs. ©2011. All calls may be monitored for training purposes. B03 Editorial pm hw3 :B09 17 editorial/pm 25/1/11 10:07 Page 11 BLUEPRINT EDITORIAL 11 SPACEPORT AMERICA SPACEPORT

2011 sees the 60th anniversary of Russian astronaut there are going to be some smart, creative folk that have an Yuri Gagarin becoming the first man in space. He was sent enormous breakthrough.’ into orbit in April 1961. A month later, Alan Shepard became Some are already being inspired by this new space age. the first American to leave the Earth’s atmosphere. Ten Arts Catalyst, the London-based group will launch its years later, he was playing golf on the moon. Kosmika series of space-related events on February 17 at its That extraordinarily intense period of invention, research space in Clerkenwell. These will lead to more ambitious and achievement has never been repeated. Yet the current events, with the European Space Agency, later in the year. race to exploit space is offering something new, and just as There’s an interesting comparison to be made between exciting. It looks like Virgin Galactic will get there first, the tangible excitement of these plans, and those outlined by offering passengers a four-minute taste of suborbital flight. the Southbank’s artistic director, Jude Kelly, to celebrate the Yet the terrestrial nature of Foster+Partners’ design for 60th anniversary of the Festival of Britain. Kelly denies that Spaceport America (see page 36), emphasises how ordinary there is any attempt to create a re-run of the ground- such projects will increasingly become. As Richard Williams breaking 1951 event. ‘That would be too audacious’ she said. points out, we should take note of ‘what is achievable now by The lack of vision – more important than a lack of budget anyone with a little cash, and some basic DIY skills.’ – is not unique to arts curators. It is a broader problem, Robotic astronauts, space elevators, inflatable space summed up in the calls for the recreation of Skylon, the stations, bio-engineered space suits: these are no longer the 90m-high sculpture that towered over the Festival’s site and realm of science fiction. Given the pace of invention, we symbolised a modernist future for postwar Britain. Plans to should easily expect the first extraterrestrial human to be recreate it are considerably less inspiring than the SKYLON born in the next 50 years. For the moment, space tourism spaceplane under development by British aerospace company has little to do with space exploration, but its potential to Reaction Engines. If one wants to see where exciting visions inspire is huge. As aerospace designer Burt Rutan (see page for the future of humanity lie, it is up in space. 42) has said: ‘I have a feeling that among those 100,000 that fly in those 40 or 50 spaceships over the next 15 years Peter Kelly, editor

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Alias.indd 1 25/1/11 11:11:33 B03 13 14 contents op hw ef op:B08_17 contents/pm/sd/pk/ta 25/1/11 10:53 Page 13 FEATURES 13 42 50

MARK GREENBERG 56 IRENE L. SCHLACHT & EXTREME-DESIGN GROUP 2010 & EXTREME-DESIGN IRENE L. SCHLACHT NYEIN AUNG/LIFTPORT GROUP NYEIN AUNG/LIFTPORT

36 SPACEPORT AMERICA 42 SPACECRAFT DESIGN 48 COMMENT 56 PROFILE: REGINA PELDSZUS Virgin Galactic’s determined California-based company Scaled NASA Astronaut Dr Jeffrey Missions to Mars are predicted pursuit of commercial space Composites has been pioneering Hoffman argues that designers to be undertaken within the travel has resulted in the aerospace design since it was need to be more imaginative if next 20 years. Research into realisation of Spaceport America founded by visionary engineer commercial space travel is the human factors of long-term, in New Mexico. The project is Burt Rutan in the 1980s. The to become a success manned spaceflight is becoming seen as both an economic company designed the White an increasingly important field venture for the underperforming Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo 50 SPACE FOR SALE as the missions become a American state and as a step crafts that will soon take paying Richard Williams explains that reality. Owen Pritchard meets forward in aerospace technology. customers on sub-orbital flights. as governments scale back their Regina Peldszus who has spent Designed by Norman Foster, who As Rutan prepares for space programmes, manned three years undertaking a PhD is fascinated by space-related retirement, Peter Kelly reports spaceflight is being driven by in space design, researching architecture, Gwen Webber on how the company is private investment and feverish the physiological and discovers a decidedly Earth- continuing to set precedents in activity in design for psychological impact of design bound and pragmatic spaceport design for space travel commercial clients on prolonged isolation

BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 B03 13 14 contents op hw ef op:B08_17 contents/pm/sd/pk/ta 25/1/11 10:17 Page 14 14 REGULARS 63 72

26 STEPHENS AND ALAN HO DUSTIN

16 OPENING SHOT 63 PRODUCE: TRON ARMCHAIR 69 REVIEW 74 PRODUCTS Artist Nelly Ben Hayoun presents The digital landscape that Film: Gwen Webber reviews her immersive installation Super features in the recent sequel to Orphans of Apollo, a film about K Sonic Booooum the 1982 sci-fi film Tron has the commercialisation of space 82 MAN AND MACHINE inspired a new chair by New Exhibition: Guy Bird visits the Czech architect Ondrej Doule 21 VIEW York-based practice Studio Dror Mœbius-Transe-Forme exhibition began the project to design a Project M; Bigelow Aerospace’s Benshetrit, designed for the at the Fondation Cartier in structure for a human habitat inflatable space station; Buran Signature collaboration between Paris, a retrospective covering on Mars while working as an Space Shuttle; Dava Newman’s Walt Disney and Capellini. five decades of the comic-book intern at NASA and continued Biosuit; SKYLON spaceplane by Gian Luca Amadei reports on artist’s influential work to develop it at the Reaction Engines; Erik the ideas and manufacturing Book: Natre Wannathepsakul International Space University. Spiekermann’s Achtung!; Citius process that have created a reviews Arctic Perspective It is designed to be completely by Tim Abrahams; Sour Grapes, chair with a unique aesthetic, Cahier No.1 edited by Andreas self-sufficient and house and Nailhouse by Christopher which manages to be both Muller, about designs for harsh scientists during lengthy Rainbow unapologetic and charming environments on Earth research missions

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ERCO003_motiv_27_en_248x328_Blue_rechts.indd Blueprint.indd 1 1 03.12.201021/1/11 8:46:34 09:31:34 Uhr B03 14 15 Opening shot ef hw:B09 20 Opening shot/pm/hw/ta 20/1/11 19:34 Page 16

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OPENING SHOT NELLY BEN HAYOUN Artist Nelly Ben Hayoun studied Design Interactions at the RCA in London and has exhibited her work in Paris, Tokyo, London and Dublin. Her award- winning Super K Sonic Booooum is an immersive installation inspired by the Kamiokande Observatory in Japan, and was exhibited at last year’s Manchester Science Festival. An expert in particle physics accompanied participants on a boat ride along the 15-metre ‘river’ of water that ran through a tunnel lined with thousands of balloons. Visitors experienced a visual interpretation of the sonic boom that occurs when neutrinos and water molecules interact. Nelly Ben Hayoun will be participating in the inaugural Kosmica event in London at The Arts Catalyst on 17 February (along with Regina Peldszus – see page 54). www.artscatalyst.org

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Screens at Work.indd 1 21/1/11 09:32:38 0 1Ve we:0 5v1/ki20/1/1119:37Page1 25 ef:B09 hw View1 21 B03 Ω Project Centaur developed by R2 arestillbeing caterpilar tracks for wheels and tomorrow. Legs, the dawnof anew Above: glintingin estimated thatthe totalcostwould track for a2013landing. It is and engineers claim tostillbeon has beenspent onthe programme, operate on thismission. Sofar, £5.5m persuaded other NASA unitstoco- engineering companies, and funds, bartered withprivate hasuseddiscretionary Houston – at the Johnson SpaceCentre in ledbyStephen JAltemus Project M– engineer Matt Ondler. relevant ormeaningful,’ saysNASA administrations inthe future tobe ‘That istoomany Presidential mission tothe moon until 2028: Obama shelved aproposed manned exploration were becoming apparent. Obama’s scaled-backplans for space in 2009,atatime when Barack within NASA. The planwasannounced New York Times asa‘guerrillaeffort’ 1000 days, hasbeen described bythe humanoid robot onthe moon within Project M,the mission toland a effective PR,writes scientific marvel, itisalsostunningly Project Misnot justanAmerican been pencilled infor amoon landing, A masterpiece of engineering that’s The engineering teambehind Peter Kelly visor toprovide depth perception and five cameras behind itsreflective consists of ahead, which contains The 1metre-tall humanoid robot otherwise require human astronauts. dangerous environments thatwould dexterous tasksindifficult or primary purpose istocarryout specialists atGeneral Motors. Its engineers along withrobotics crew members withbasic tasks. refined and usedtoassistthe human Station, where itwillbetested, delivered tothe International Space Discovery. The 150kg robot willbe the final flight of the SpaceShuttle Robonaut 2(R2)into space, onboard of the effort: NASA willlaunch important role inspaceexploration. that robots willplayanever-more the economy of the mission means According tothe Project Mengineers, human mission tothe moon. be £300m,compared to£93bnfor a R2 hasbeendesigned byNASA February 2011seesthe firstfruits car manufacturer Honda, which has Asimo, the robot created byJapanese dexterity marks astep-change from automatically adjusts. ForGM,this the firmness of the grip,the robot visitor; no matter whatsizehand or been toshake the hands of every demonstrations, R2’spartytrick has adjust the grip.Inpublic reaction forces and continuously allow R2’scontrol systems tosense and actuators inthe palm.These joints tosensors inthe finger-tips has tendons toconnect the skeletal two degrees of freedom inwrist.R2 have 12degrees of freedom aswell has slimfingers and thumbs; they Unlike previous humanoid robots, R2 in R2hasbeenfocused onthe hands. currently indevelopment. across Lunar and Martian terrain, are as legsand wheels to propel the R2 pedestal. Lowerbody elements, such laboratory, deployed onafixed operations inthe ISS’s Destiny intricate tasksatremote locations. that R2canbeusedtoperform information tohuman operators so and partlyonrelaying sensory carrying outpre-programmed tasks– on partial robotic autonomy – a 10kg weight. Its operation isbased and twoarms, eachcapableof lifting the robot’s 38Power PCProcessors, infrared vision; atorso,which houses The most advanced engineering At first,R2willbeconfined to VIEW value of technological progress. be areminder of the inspirational the 1969moon landing, Project M will economies. Yet asarobotic remake of old-fashioned vision of future promotional talk:itseems acuriously this century.’ Thisis, of course, will dominate the globaleconomy in designs, produces and markets robots, industry of robotics, the nation that century… The nation thatleadsthe personal computerwere tothe last automobile, the television and the will betothiscentury whatthe year, NASA stated: ‘A humanoid robot project, produced inFebruary last NASA toconduct,’ saysOndler. compelling and worthy mission for Obama might agree thatitisa thought quitefrankly, President our technological prowess. We also will inspire students and demonstrate humanoid robot walking onthe moon excitement inthe general public. ‘A torso are designed togenerate – and the superhero proportions of its from BattlestarGalactica orRobocop silver head –reminiscent of designs but the sleeklines of itsgold-and- engineered tocarryoutdelicate tasks, exercise. R2’sintricate hands may be Project Misapublic relations technology tothe government, robotics for more than10years. become afamiliar icon for advanced In itswhitepaperproposing the As wellasademonstration of BLUEPRINT 21 MARCH 2011

JOE BIBBY B03 22 View 2 hw ef:B09 26 v2 ki 25/1/11 11:30 Page 22 22

Bigelow Aerospace has designed an serving as sub-contractors to NASA. commercial and scientific research LEO has been dominated by NASA and and development as well as inflatable space station, which is up a handful of other government space manufacturing… akin to a national lab’. agencies.’ Bigelow is targeting entire Two habitable Bigelow modules for rent. It offers both commercial and countries to lease his modules, and are almost ready to go. As well as the argues that those who exploit the 13.7m long BA 330, which already political potential says the company’s opportunities of microgravity ‘will exists as a production model, there is become the economic giants and Sundancer, 8.8m long with a founder. Herbert Wright reports political leaders of the future‘. pressurised volume of 180 cubic Memoranda of understanding have metres. Bigelow already has In 1969, David Bowie’s Major Tom 330 cubic metre interior – a giant leap been signed by the UK, Japan and astronauts to service these modules. described his home as a ‘tin can’. in habitable space compared to other nations. Although not binding Life-support systems testing began in From our occasional glimpses into the NASA’s current Destiny research commitments, Bigelow says they ‘serve October. The roadblock to getting International Space Station’s (ISS) module at the ISS, which is only 106 as an important intermediate step’. them into service is a lack of a cramped confines, things have not cubic metres in volume. What countries or companies do transport system or capsule to get changed dramatically. There is, Bigelow is passionate about with their module is up to them. astronauts up and down from LEO. however, an alternative being commercialising manned space Bigelow built his personal fortune ‘Without such a capsule we cannot mooted. Robert T Bigelow has a activity, and he’s put his money where from the Budget Suites of America proceed,’ says Bigelow, ‘and it different proposition: a habitable his mouth is: he’s invested $18 million hotel chain, so not surprisingly the certainly represents the long pole in inflatable module. Although this since 1998 in Las Vegas-based Bigelow press has touted space tourism. ‘We the tent.’ Undeterred, his company is sounds strange, it makes sense and Aerospace. His aim is to commercialise are not building a space hotel,’ he now participating in Boeing’s NASA- allows for larger volumes of usable low Earth orbit (LEO) – the area insists, although ‘if Hilton or Marriott backed CST-100 capsule, designed to space to be packed tightly into the roughly 160-2,000km above the Earth hired us, we would be happy to design dock not just with the ISS, but also same payload at launch as a in which you’ll find various satellites, such a facility.’ Instead, Bigelow sees Bigelow’s station, which will consist conventional metal tube. Bigelow tonnes of debris and the ISS. ‘LEO more serious, wealth-creating use of of two Sundancers and a BA 330 Aerospace plans a commercial space becoming the domain of private LEO’s microgravity ‘that will benefit around a central docking unit. station by 2015, with modules to rent. enterprise’, says Bigelow, ‘[means] the entire globe’. He stresses that his Although Bigelow is one of a new The biggest, a BA 330, offers a roomy commercial companies moving beyond offering is ‘a world-class platform for set of private entrepreneurs, his work owes a debt to NASA. In 2002, Right: the proposed Bigelow licensed NASA patents for an space station from alternative to the conventional ‘tin Bigelow cans’ that house astronauts and Aeronautics will equipment in orbit. The TransHab comprise two project was based around a tube of Sundancer modules 30cm-thick laminated materials and one BA 330 capable of absorbing impacts from meteors and debris while also insulating against exterior temperature variations of 250°C. The structure had to be flexible enough to inflate to almost double its launch diameter. In 2000, the US Congress banned the US space agency from building expandable space modules, in a complex bill addressing its spiralling funding. According to Bigelow, ‘My understanding is that the furthest NASA got before the programme was terminated was to construct and test some restraint layers.’ He adds that ‘many expandable habitats look alike externally, which is why from a superficial perspective NASA plans can bear a resemblance to illustrations of our own products’. The technology, though, now sets Bigelow apart from his commercial competition. Other companies such as Orbital Technologies are planning to launch a small metal module. This month, Excalibur Almaz shipped two unused 1970s Soviet military space station modules to the Isle of Man for testing. Bigelow is unfazed, expressing confidence in his ‘superior architecture and usable volume’. A crowded marketplace in LEO is exactly where Bigelow’s unique inflated modules should blow away the competition.

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reduced throughout the 1980s. owned and proudly displayed at the Once the pride of the Soviet Union, the The redundant Burans now remain Sinsheim Technology Museum in ghost of the Buran Space Shuttle finds scattered around the country. Germany). In 2002, Buran 1.01, the Originally they were manufactured only fully operational orbiter, was itself quietly haunting a Moscow less than a kilometre away from the destroyed when the roof of its hangar Khimki pier, at the NPO Energia at Baikonur, buffeted by heavy snow scrapyard these days. But don’t let this factory. Transporting them, however, and unmaintained through budget was not easy. Each Buran is the height cuts, collapsed, killing seven workers. mislead you about Russia’s current stake of a five-storey building and has a Other models of the Buran remain wingspan of 23.92m. The street exposed to the elements in Baikonur, in space, reveals Christopher Rainbow between the production line and the while back in Moscow one can be pier was widened specially to found in Gorky Park. Like the Buran at Above: an The Khimki Reservoir, on a tributary launched the Space Shuttle Columbia accommodate the wingspan. A barge Khimki pier, this ‘snowstorm’ has illustration by of the Moscow River, is frozen. An with 37 orbits of the Earth in 1981, ferried the spacecraft to the struggled to withstand the elements. Christopher elderly couple is tugged across the icy Russia began to covet the innovation Zhukovsky airfield, 40km southeast of The Buran by the banks of the Rainbow of the surface by eager grandchildren, while of combining a rocket launch with a Moscow and from there, the shuttle Khimki might seem emblematic of underwhelming home of the Buran nearby on a desolate snow-covered spacecraft that re-entered in its would be mounted on the An-225 and Russia’s emergence from the Soviet by the Moscow football pitch, a pair of dishevelled entirety. Columbia was in fact a then flown to the Soviet Cosmodrome era, but one should be wary of seeing River, with inset alcoholics glower menacingly at compromise for NASA, who had hoped at Baikonur in Kazakhstan. it as a representative of the state of diagram of the passers-by. Behind them, a corrugated to follow the Apollo missions with a The husk of the shuttle that its contemporary space programme. shuttle in iron fence delineates an open-air yard. manned flight to Mars but failed to stands at the Khimki pier was on the The government has struggled to better days Inside, with missing wings, and its achieve political support. factory floor when funding for the preserve the Buran as a treasured exterior thermal tiles stripped to Sold on the concept of a re-usable project evaporated, and remained artefact, but this does not mean that reveal a green skin faded and battered craft, the Soviets designed a response there until moved to its current home the Russian space programme is dead. by the elements, the Buran space around the US model, using Energia in 2003 so as to free space in the Roscosmos, the Russian Federal Space shuttle – ‘snowstorm’ in Russian – has rocket technology to propel the ship factory. Speaking a year later, the Agency is locked into an ongoing sat for the past seven years. By into orbit. Five working craft were factory’s deputy general director contribution to the International contrast, the orbiter for the US Space constructed in addition to eight full- Mikhail Gofin said that he had been Space Station (ISS) and on New Year’s Shuttle Discovery sits on display at size prototype models, yet the Buran’s advised to dismantle and melt down Eve proudly announced that Russia the Smithsonian Institute in only ever completed mission the Buran. He had refused. ‘We are had launched ‘two times more rockets Washington DC. consisted of two Earth orbits on 15 categorically against the destruction than the USA and China in 2010’. In How did this once bold statement December 1988. As an encore, Buran of the ship, as it is our national fact, the Russian Soyuz rocket will of Soviet strength, a proud explorer appeared at the 1989 Paris Air Show heritage. These relics cannot be soon be the sole means of destined for outer space find itself atop the An-225, at 84m long and destroyed,’ he said. transporting astronauts to and from here, left to decay? In the mid-1970s 88.4m in wingspan, the world’s Unfortunately the size and the ISS because NASA is due to retire the Soviet leadership signed off the largest cargo aircraft. For the space expense of the craft has meant that its remaining three Space Shuttles Mir space station and Energia rocket programme, the collapse of the Soviet wherever a Buran has surfaced it has later this year. As the Buran knows programme as the focus of its space Union in 1991 was the final death struggled to find a secure home in its only too well: yesterday’s future is ambitions. When the Americans knell, as its funding had slowly been motherland (although one model is tomorrow’s relic.

BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 B03 24 v4 pm hw:B09 26 v2 ki 20/1/11 19:42 Page 22 26 To create a BioSuit that will allow future astronauts greater flexibility than the clunky spacesuits of the present, Dava Newman had to look to the past. Gwen Webber reports

Many of the current developments in pressure system, which used elastic technology for space exploration are tension in a skin-tight garment rather based on defunct research by NASA. than gas in the EMU. Thirty years In 1967 engineer Paul Webb proposed later, while researching for her thesis, a design to NASA for a Space Activity Newman stumbled across the proposal Suit (SAS). After the failure of the and recognised Webb’s work as a 1970 Apollo 13 mission, though, potential jumping-off point for a there followed a drought in practical solution to enhancing space investment for moon exploration. The exploration. Her team now includes SAS would have allowed astronauts former astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Jeff the mobility to live and work on the Hoffman (see Comment page 46) moon, at the time a serious and along with the original SAS designer tangible proposition. Today, with Paul Webb. support from NASA’s Institute for The newly brought-together team Advanced Concepts and MIT’s Man has made fundamental changes to Vehicle Lab (MVL), MIT professor and Webb’s original design, including the aeronautical engineer Dava Newman addition of direct mechanical pressure has developed a new version of the applied to the skin. This creates a SAS, dubbed the BioSuit, along with ‘second skin’ and with it increased architect Guillermo Trotti. mobility. Newman cites athletics as an inspiration for the design. ‘The Speedo TO STOP ASTRONAUTS skin suit worn at the 2000 Sydney FROM BLOWING UP, Olympics was the creative thought,’ she says, ‘then, as an engineer I WE NEED TO CONTROL applied the maths and facts.’ Indeed, PRESSURE ON THE the BioSuit’s genius lies in its engineering to produce a flexible yet BODY AND THE FLUIDS protective skin-tight material. ‘To RUNNING THROUGH prevent the astronaut from blowing up, we need to control pressure on the AND OVER THE SKIN body and the fluids running through and over the skin,’ says Trotti, director Current suits only enable the of Trotti Studio. Above: a 3D laser information across the body. The same although ultimately the BioSuit might wearer limited flexibility, permitting The team used a 3D laser scanner scanner was used process allowed researchers to plot rely on traditional elements as well, them to take the same loping strides to map the contours of movement and to map the the ‘lines of non-extension’ – lines such as a gas-pressured torso section that Neil Armstrong and others made torque across the body. Wires and contours of along the body that do not extend or and helmet, the project has received movement of the on the moon more than 40 years ago. cables were then embedded into the body contract in length during movement – the go-ahead for funding from a key These fully pressurised suits, or BioSuit’s fabric; one set of ‘skeleton’ by mapping body surface curves with player in the industry, and promising Extravehicular Mobility Units, were, lines allowing flexibility and structure Below: a series of the deformations of circles drawn client – NASA. and still are, as unwieldy as their while a second track links up to a sketches show directly on to the skin and measured. Though it remains a research name. Webb’s alternative was portable computer, which monitors the evolution of The different elastic materials project for now, the goal is for revolutionary: creating a counter- heart-rate and other biological spacesuit helmets that make up the suit’s fabric were astronauts on future moon and Mars woven using electrospinning, a missions to don the BioSuit. process whereby an electrical charge ‘The suits that were used for the draws very fine fibres from a liquid. Its Apollo missions were great for that composite materials, manufactured by era, but the scale of ambition has Italian company Dainese, which changed,’ says Trotti. ‘Today we are specialises in motorcyclist gear, will looking at realistic options for have a huge impact on the feasibility inhabiting the moon: working on it, of the project. The implications of farming it for resources and living on using such a mix of recyclable it. The idea has been around for polymers as nylon and Spandex on the decades and there have been people outer layer could lower the cost of the who’ve tried to make it a possibility, BioSuit to a tenth of the $20 million like Webb and his team. Now price tag of one of today’s spacesuits. technological innovation is allowing The team’s 10-year project has so far us to realise these dreams.’ opened up new channels of enquiry – In the short-term, the suit makes for example, the use of a spray-on practical chores easier for the inner layer for a snug fit. The team is cosmonauts and astronauts charged still working on the most complicated with maintaining the exteriors of areas of the legs and arms, and space stations and satellites.

BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 Blueprint FP.indd 1 21/1/11 09:45:12 Blueprint-interiors002-120110.pdf 1 10/01/2011 10:42

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co-founders Richard Varvill and John feasible. Research Engines’ concepts Using a name that was once iconic as Scott-Scott, both ex-Rolls Royce don’t go that far, but they have engineers. Initially, they used explored possible scenarios for the a piece of design, Reaction Engines’ Amstrad personal computers to infrastructure that would be built SKYLON is an example of British crunch numbers. What emerged was around the SKYLON. These include an not just the new SKYLON design, but Orbital Base Station, which is a vast science that is destined to be iconic its key element – a revolutionary open cylindrical frame – effectively an engine called SABRE. It performs as orbiting shipyard. Large spacecraft all over again writes Herbert Wright an air-breathing jet up to a speed of built in it could go to Mars, and Mach 5, then switches during flight Reaction Engines has a plan for such a into a rocket, conventionally burning mission in 2028. Above: SKYLON There’s something of the optimistic, drag. Most of the fuselage is occupied hydrogen and oxygen. What makes However, Bond shares an celebrates the heroic post-war spirit to SKYLON, the by two liquid hydrogen tanks, with SABRE’s performance so efficient is a understanding with American space ambition of British reusable spaceplane under the payload bay between them. unique system that uses helium to entrepreneurs that there must be a engineers and is development by Reaction Engines of So far, everything in orbit has cool incoming air by 1150˚C while in market for what he offers. ‘It is much more than a air-breathing mode, so it can be essential to get space transportation mere flight of fancy Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Although it got there on multi-stage rockets – needs no pilot, Dan Dare would surely even the ‘reusable’ Space Shuttle compressed and burnt with into the same economic framework as have been just the man for the job. sheds vast booster rockets that are hydrogen. The unusual way the all other human activity, if human The SKYLON vehicle is named after the strapped on to launch it. SKYLON, exterior curves slightly, like a banana, aspirations for a future involving the Powell and Moya-designed Skylon however, takes off and lands all in is a design feature that points the off-Earth resources of the solar needle that floated above the 1951 one piece. What it could deliver to air intake directly into the engine system are to be realised,’ he says. Festival of Britain and – weirdly – the orbit includes geosynchronous during ascent. ‘SKYLON is only a beginning and other spacecraft has a similar shape and satellites (which remain fixed Currently, the engine propulsion systems and transport scale to the sculpture even if the way relative to the Earth), supplies to development is part-funded by the architecture will rapidly follow’. Bond it challenges gravity is based on more the International Space Station, European Space Agency, but the cannot predict the future, but advanced British technology. Solar Power Satellites, or even a mechanical structure of SKYLON is anticipates a day when ‘we will not be Far from being a piece of module for 25 people. ‘SKYLON can privately funded. Eventually, Reaction tied to this one piece of flotsam left nostalgic design, the SKYLON is an support anything that is foreseeable Engines would license the vehicle over from the formation of the Sun.’ important proposition for space travel in the near- and mid-term future,’ design to be built and operated by SKYLON has a long way to go and could be in commercial service by comments Dr Mark Hempsell, the others, so the company could before it flies. Perhaps the biggest 2020. Delivering 12 tonnes into orbit, Future Programmes Director at concentrate on engine technologies. fear is the sort of funding dry-up that it will be ready to fly again within two Reaction Engines. That hasn’t stopped Reaction led to the cancellation of previous days of a mission, and capable of 200 Reaction Engines, as the name Engines though from pursuing what British space projects. Bond says ‘I flights over its lifetime. At 82m long, suggests, is primarily interested in it calls ‘advanced studies’ based on lament the loss of the opportunity it is longer than a Boeing 747, but its building engines. The company was SKYLON’s capabilities. HOTOL afforded the UK and the wingspan is a mere 25m. Its fuselage set up in 1989 by engineer Alan Bond has an unusual track-record terrible attrition of highly skilled and is only 6.25m across and with a black Bond, leader of an earlier British with what may seem flights of fancy. talented people that the nation aeroshell skin of fibre-reinforced Aerospace spaceplane design called In the 1970s, he led a project for the consigned to the “scrap-heap” during ceramic, it’s a sleek, dramatic form. HOTOL. After the British government British Interplanetary Society to the 1980s.’ Nowadays, he is more However, the design of the truss- withdrew its funding from HOTOL, design a space probe to reach a confident, and says that ‘we have no framework structure is purely Bond set about designing a better nearby star. The work gained much complaints about the level of support functional, minimising atmospheric spaceplane with Reaction Engines’ respect for its grounding in what was and interest we currently enjoy.’

BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 B03 30 v8 pm ef hw:B08 36 v8 pm/sd/ta 24/1/11 19:09 Page 40 30 BRANDALISM to pay homage in a grateful and MECHANISED MUSINGS and Norman Foster locked in a The award for the stupidest name for a playful way.’ A swish video featuring If there was any doubt that vicious love triangle on a building site redevelopment project seems to be in Tracy Emin and Ray Davies upped the Robonaut 2 was aesthetically in the Cotswolds. the bag already for 2011. With the ante, before a visibly excited Wayne designed to be anything more than a BBC moving its operations out of Hemmingway revealed his passion PR stunt, then Twitter has confirmed ARCBIZARRE White City to the new Media City in for the 1951 Festival of Britain. Grapes’ initial cynicism. R2 has its Crowdsourcing is a buzzword used by Manchester, TCN and communications Flicking through the original own cutesy account ‘@Robonaut’ to marketing types to get people to work

SOUR agency JPCreative have agreed with programme he declared: ‘All the way answer questions from the public as for free. Grapes (and a good few the BBC to utilise 5,570 sq m of through it’s full of stuff that just well as musing on its own existence. others) was perturbed to read that a vacant building on part of the White makes you want to dribble.’ So, in Don’t expect any technical insight, ‘group of business graduates’ from City estate. The interior of the existing short, the anniversary will be an however. Recent offerings include: ‘I’ll Harvard have decided that this might GRAPES building will be refitted while the unaudacious rebranding of the annual need a robot to play EVE to my WALL- be a good business model to apply to listed exterior will remain. The Southbank festival lightly coated in E.’ Or the equally desperate, ‘Dear architecture and have established marketing geniuses behind the project Wayne Hemmingway’s saliva. Santa, I would like legs for Christmas, ArcBazaar.org. Clients can now upload have, after extensive research and please. I have been very good and their brief, architects can then carry mind-mapping (no doubt), rebranded MACHO, MACHO MAN worked very hard since I was born in out the design process for free in a the building UGLI with the strapline At the recent Critical Futures debate at May. Yours sincerely, R2.’ Who said competition format. If they don’t win ‘Beautiful on the Inside’. Maybe they the Gopher Hole in Shoreditch, science was dumbing down? the competition, they receive points were inspired by last year’s ‘Be stupid’ Blueprint editor Peter Kelly joined a on their profile. Unfortunately, points campaign for clothing brand Diesel. panel with curator Beatrice Galilee, NOVEL IDEA don’t win prizes – or a fee for the work Shumi Bose, Kieran Long, Charles Grapes has longed for the definitive carried out. In all, it’s a very bad idea. A TONIC FOR THE NATION? Holland and Geoff Manaugh’s huge architecture novel to adorn its dusty The 60th anniversary of the Festival of digitised face to discuss the future of shelves. Since The Fountainhead by PRODUCT PLACEMENT Britain is coming up this summer. architectural criticism. A good time Ayn Rand, there have been few serious Grapes always relishes in a snoop Grapes had the pleasure of attending was had by all. Grapes was, however, attempts at writing fiction featuring around the houses of the rich and the launch at which the programme left perturbed by one suspect the profession. When Grapes got wind famous. The Times magazine indulged was announced. Many of the events comment from Standard architecture of a new novel scheduled for release, us greatly with a nose around Design had a familiar feel, including the critic Long: ‘When I’m in the pub, I ‘Perfect Architect’ by Jayne Joso, Museum director and ex-Blueprint Meltdown Festival and the E4 don’t talk about computer games,’ he hopes began to rise. Upon reading the editor Deyan Sudjic’s north London Udderbelly – established annual said, ‘I talk about football, because press release, the hopes quickly faded home. Poring over the pictures, Grapes events dragged under the celebration’s I’m your masculine archetype.’ When again. It’s billed as ‘Grand Designs was surprised to see that the cunning banner. Southbank Centre’s artistic it was pointed out that, he definitely meets I Am Love’ and played out Mr Sudjic had managed to sneak a director Jude Kelly confidently isn’t an archetypal male. He conceded, against ‘the international settings and copy of his recent Norman Foster announced: ‘We are not trying to ‘Well, maybe not in this jacket’. ‘No’, glamour associated with the world of biography into one picture, placed produce a new Festival of Britain. It Grapes thought, ‘not in that jacket, star architects’. Grapes could only carefully on the sofa in his first would be too audacious. We are trying or any other jacket’. picture Kevin McCloud, Tilda Swinton floor living room.

BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 DESIGNERS IN RESIDENCE 2011 Call for entries — An annual commission and exhibition, Designers in Residence asks recent design graduates to create new work in response to a speciﬁc brief The designs will be showcased in a temporary exhibition at the Design Museum 24 August 2011 — 22 January 2012

Applicants must be resident in the UK, have graduated from Higher Education within the last five years and have been working professionally in some form of design practice for at least one year The brief, set by Design Museum Director Deyan Sudjic, application form and terms and conditions are available from designmuseum.org/exhibitions/2011/ designers-in-residence The deadline for entries is — 5pm on Monday 28 February 2011

DesignDMDR_BlueprintAdvert_AW.indd Museum.indd 1 2 24/1/1124/01/2011 16:33:55 16:17 Spiral Staircase.indd 1 21/1/11 10:15:30 B03 31 citius ef:B09 29 v3 ki 20/1/11 19:43 Page 31 33 CITIUSΩ

Against the wishes of Lord Coe, it seems likely that the permanent residents at the Olympic Stadium will be a Premiership football club. He’ll make sure, however, that athletics remains ingrained in the ground

In 2008, Lord Coe grandly stated: ‘we Federations, the sport’s supreme track for the City of Manchester obstacles in the way. Just as in 2003, are not in the business of building governing body. To be clear, Coe, a Stadium was removed when it was when David Dein (vice-chairman of football grounds.’ Yet as the Olympic former Tory MP, orchestrated London’s converted to football use, Manchester Arsenal Football Club) indulged in Park Legacy Company considers who victory in the bid to host the Olympic City fans still complain about the some arm-twisting when he mooted should become tenant of the Olympic Games. In the document produced to distance of the main stands from the relocating to Wembley in the face of Stadium after the Games in 2012, the help persuade the International pitch. The wiser ones, though, local resistance to Arsenal’s new two most likely candidates are football Olympic Committee, he promised that grudgingly acknowledge that the move stadium in Islington, so it is thought teams: Tottenham Hotspur and West the stadium would become a to the bigger ground paved the way that David Levy is doing the same with Ham United. Indeed, Tottenham’s late permanent home for British athletics. for investment that has made them Spurs and the Olympic Stadium. entry to the fray has shocked many, as So if Lord Coe, who has had to one of the best teams in England. What is funny about the Spurs bid it proposes the wholesale demolition compromise on the tenant, wants an In some ways the Spurs bid – with is that it would cost £200 million less of the stadium. Although this bid is athletics track, he is going to get one. its promise to trash the athletics to demolish the Olympic stadium and definitely not the favourite, it does rebuild a new one incorporating little highlight the political and economic of the original but the undercroft. The realities of sport in a way that the club is offering to spend £25 million West Ham bid, which promises to on the Grade II-listed National Sports retain the track and allow the stadium Centre in Crystal Palace, the current to be used for athletics, does not. home of British athletics. This 15,000- In one very important way Lord seat stadium is just the right size to Coe was right. The Olympic Stadium in host the London Grand Prix although Stratford is, as it stands, a crap it costs London’s authorities about football stadium. Built in a cramped £1million a year to maintain. Olympics site on a bend in the River Lea, it may athletics retains a political clout be an 80,000-seat stadium, but it is greater than its popularity, though. designed with minimal facilities. A David Lammy, who is MP for the simple bowl of seating and sporting constituency in which Spurs’ ground area, it has no toilets, suites, boxes and very limited hospitality (during THE ECONOMIC the Games these will be provided in separate temporary structures). It REALITY IS FOOTBALL doesn’t have a roof, and perhaps most CAN PAY FOR LARGE importantly, it has an athletics track that must remain. It was designed to STADIA. POLITICALLY, be a large stadium for only three IT IS INFERIOR TO THE weeks, and then after the Games, for sections to be removed so it becomes RARIFIED WORLD OF a 30,000-seat stadium, which would ATHLETICS be both a community facility and the home of British athletics. Although athletics tracks are track – is a satire on Coe’s ambition. stands, asked the OPLC to 'detail the Lord Coe may not have a position common around football stadia on the Indeed, the conspiracy theory that it framework that will be used to make within the OPLC and he may have been Continent, in the UK they are seen as is not a serious bid is convincing. the decision'. According to the Daily forced to backtrack on his aversion to anathema. The atmosphere of live Tottenham submitted plans for a new Mail the reply cited an 'elite sport' in a a football club tenant, but his football, such an important selling stadium at Northumberland Park near context that suggested something influence over the whole development point to keep fans paying large its existing crumbling ground, White other than football. Although the is huge. Let us not forget he is a amounts to attend, depends on their Hart Lane, in October last year. The economic reality is that, in the UK, former athlete, one of Britain’s most proximity to the action. This project will also include a 77,000 sq ft football is the only sport that can pay successful. He is also an Olympian. He proximity, paradoxically, has an effect supermarket and over 400 new homes, for a large stadium, politically it is won gold medals in the 1500m at both on TV audiences, whereby a match in of which 40 per cent will be considered inferior to the rarefied the 1980 Moscow Olympics and the which the fans are close to the pitch affordable. It is an expensive package world of athletics. And West Ham fans 1984 Los Angeles Games. In addition, and voluble, is far better to watch at £450 million and the club has made gazing over stretches of polyurethane- he is the vice-president of the than one where they are removed from it clear that it feels the local coated rubber will be reminded of this International Association of Athletics the action. Even though the athletics authorities are putting too many every time the team plays at home.

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Movies about space and real-life space travel seemed to have spurred each other on, over the years, to come up with the best ideas. It’s a shame graphic designers haven’t been able to keep up

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space from space movies. NASA retired that likely first think of the lack of space roughly 7,000 or more computers. And Odyssey, first shown in 1968, cool logo in 1992 in favour of a badge on their hard drives or in their closets. they all get their data from the Cloud, presented quite a few concepts that designed in 1959, officially called Some will make the connection to the thing we also refer to as ether- or have since become reality. There is a Insignia but fondly referred to as the the third dimension that we all live cyberspace, the non-place where data camera the size of a cigarette lighter ‘meatball’. That one, in turn, looks like in, and a few of us design for, but gets lost, but which might hold the that wouldn’t have been big enough it came from the Buck Rogers TV series that is firmly fixed to our earthly answer to the disappearance of single for films available at the time and that debuted on ABC in 1950. Buck presence – physically by gravity, socks and ballpoint pens. While outer passengers watch movies on screens in Rogers’ adventures in space turned mentally by inertia. space, that black nothingness the back of seats, something not space technology into a part of pop Today, ‘up in space’ is where our between planets and stars, evokes the introduced to airplanes until the culture and made Americans data lives, the stuff that connects us adventures of bold men in metallic 1980s. But Kubrick didn’t imagine that susceptible to spending billions of to our mobile phones, our bank suits with all-caps logos on them, one of the greatest brands of the time, data space hasn’t had a movie made Pan Am, would not see the year 2001. about it yet. Unless we include the In the film, Pan Am runs the shuttle to countless films about that other the moon, staffed by stewardesses in space, the physical one between knee-high boots. In fact, the airline people. This is supposed to disappear went bankrupt in 1991. by connecting individuals across The poster announcing the movie cyberspace. I cannot, however, in 1968 was set in Futura, a typeface imagine Arthur C. Clarke writing a from the 1920s that was probably book about social media and Stanley chosen for its name rather than for its Kubrick turning it into a movie, 2008: space-age look (there is a Flickr group A Myspace Odyssey, followed by the dedicated to the lack of typographic sequel, 2011: The Facebook Revenge. imagination, LTypI, which shows similar examples, like many a souvenir IF YOU MENTION THE shop displaying the eponymous WORD SPACE TO typeface on its window). The Bell company logo on the Picturephone DESIGNERS THESE booth (!) in the movie is also but a DAYS, THEY’LL MOST pleasant memory of bygone days before voice prompts had been LIKELY FIRST THINK invented and signals were clear, albeit OF THE LACK OF IT ON dependent on hard wiring. Graphic designers working for THEIR HARD DRIVES

movies never displayed a lot of GALAPON MELVIN OR IN THEIR CLOSETS imagination when it came to predicting the typographic future. dollars on the joy of space exploration. accounts and our music. This space is Whether it’s 2001, Star Wars or Star If space travel only evoked now called the Cloud, a euphemism Trek, type on walls or on screens geometric capital letters in graphic for the gigantic server farms (another always looked like it was designed in designers’ imaginations, it doesn’t deliberately harmless-sounding early-1960s Torino, Italy: square with look as if they would be good at misnomer) run by the likes of Amazon, rounded corners and the occasional predicting what the future holds, as Google, Microsoft et al. As of 2010, Erik Spiekermann there were about 16 million servers set up MetaDesign oblique protrusion. And always all far as visual communication is and FontShop, and caps. Lower case letters were concerned. Our lack of interest or in the US alone and one of those worked in London obviously considered low-tech and too imagination concerning the future of computer agglomerations needs as from 1973 to 1981. wimpish for the purposes of serious space travel might simply have to do much as 100 Megawatts of electricity, A teacher, author space travel. I am never quite sure with the fact that going into space or enough power to supply a town of and designer, he whether some of these styles were at least landing on the nearest known 80,000 in the US (twenty times as he is a partner at influenced by the cool NASA logo with satellite rock, aka the moon, hasn’t much as a town in China with the EdenSpiekermann, which has offices its curvy N and A (without a crossbar, been on our minds much lately. same population). in Berlin and like most Korean company logos) or If you mention the word space to This is only the beginning. Each Amsterdam whether NASA itself got its inspiration designers these days, they’ll most time we run a web search, we activate

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The Spaceport in New Mexico is the first of its kind in the world, marking the birth of a new typology of building

BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 B08 36 Spaceport pm hw ef2:B10 ?? ??/Interview 25/1/11 10:31 Page 38

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In the desert of New Mexico pioneering journeys are Above: the linear axis allows part of the landscape. Snaking across the region, a continuous route from the the Camino Real traces an earlier route made by entrance through the superhangar and terminal people in search of a richer existence. The ‘Royal building, and beyond Road’, also known as Camino de la Meurte – Road of the Dead – was forged as a short-cut away from the Rio Grande by people moving from Mexico City to Santa Fe and beyond in the early 19th century. The trail through what is now Sierra County is barely visible in parts, marked only by wooden gazebos with information panels, erected as part of an effort to promote and protect the historic route. Twenty miles north of Las Cruces and parallel to the Camino, a dirt road branches off Interstate 25. It is currently the only access route to the world’s first spaceport. ‘In 15 to 18 months this road will be paved,’ says Wayne Savage, project manager for Spaceport America, the agency leasing out the land to Virgin Galactic. Richard Branson’s latest headline-grabbing venture, which offers sub-orbital space flights to the paying public at around £125,000 a pop, is the building’s first and, so far, only tenant. The remote location demands an enormous amount of new infrastructure, of which this road is just one part. In this sparse and seemingly flat landscape, the spaceport becomes visible around five miles away as a greenish shell, like the back of a beetle’s wing. Plan in relation to the White Knight Two & SpaceShipOne vessels

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Top: the earth berms at the Above: a view from the Its curving form has been likened variously to an west entrance give the runway showing the east armadillo, a stingray and a bedpan. As one gets impression of descending elevation of the hangar, closer, driving through the Yote Ridge heading underground and conceal the which reaches 18m at its north-east, the building disappears from view natural cooling systems highest point entirely and the land reveals itself as crevassed. Here, when the rain eventually falls it floods the plain and cuts ruts and ridges into it; flatness is an illusion. The 328 sq m site allocated for Spaceport America has been leased on land from two existing ranches that have been in ownership of a local family – the Cains – for more than 60 years. Near one of the ranch buildings, there stands a small billboard. Signalling the spaceport ahead, it shows an early bird’s-eye view rendering. This is Foster + Partners’ competition concept. Section looking north The image is mysterious, a parabolic, nearly closed horseshoe punctured with star-like roof lights, its periphery lit up in blue-white neons and framed by Virgin Galactic’s swooping White Knight Twos – the catamaranesque aircraft that will carry the spacecraft. The image’s brown and gold tones speak of Fifties sci-fi book covers. The real building, currently under construction and due for completion this summer, seems a more practical piece of infrastructure: it is effectively a holding space for planes and waiting room for astronauts. Section looking west The most impressive component is the hangar Ω

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facility. A drive-through space, it stretches to says Antoinette Nassopoulos-Erickson, partner at career Foster has made no secret of his fascination 18m at its highest point and is open to the east and Foster and lead designer on the project. with space-related architecture, but the building on west, its entrance marked by a concrete valley cut The spaceport is an opportunity to set a site encompasses little of that excitement. into the earth. The hangar’s slanted sides give a precedent for a new typology. And it isn’t an easy The spaceport tells us more about public- sense of regal procession. When the dirt has been aesthetic to reconcile. Even as a construction site, private partnerships than cosmic aspirations. After properly compacted, the earth berms will rise at 10,220 sq m, it is clear that the spaceport hangar announcing its collaboration with New Mexico around and give the impression of entering directly has little room for manoeuvre. It will be a snug fit Spaceport Authority in 2005, Virgin Galactic into the ground. parking two White Knight Two aircraft with 25m approached Foster + Partners with plans for a At ground level, the building’s most unique spans and five SpaceShipOne rockets with 5m spans commercial horizontal launch site in the New aspect is the bridge-cum-promenade over the under the same roof. The hangar will be flanked by Mexico desert. The company had been looking in operation floor. The bridge is skeletal (it will be understated three-storey blocks to the east and west Florida for a site to launch its budding space covered, but not completely) and from there, containing offices and training rooms. For the time programme and was invited by then director of passengers will have a view over activity on ground being, the fuselage trainer – where passengers can Spaceport America, Rick Homans to invest in a site level, standing over the elegant planes and rockets experience weightlessness in preparation for the it had earmarked, 80km west of the White Sands that will be taking them on their space-bound flight – will be held at the Mojave Air and Space Missile Range. A scheme was drawn up by a local adventure. From this vantage point, one is also able Port in California. architect, Antoine Predock PC but Virgin Galactic to see the beautiful underside of the roof: its steel Such pragmatic concerns seem a let-down in was keen to get a second opinion. beams and struts are a complex web of interchanges this stargazing project. But that is the reality as Foster’s initial proposal inspired the and nodes. One can also see the sunken section of space travel becomes a commercial business. government to open an international competition. roof that allows the intense New Mexico sun to Expectations about what a spaceport should look Local architect SMPC came on board as the team’s flood into the deep covered space below. ‘The whole like are rooted in a nostalgic view of the future, licensed architect and construction giants URS acted idea behind Virgin as a brand is the experience for played out in films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and as primary builders, while Foster took the lead on the client... and bringing together the two functions replicated in the lairs of James Bond villains. Rather design. Though it’s been said that conversations of operational space and visitors’ facilities was key than fulfilling our expectations, Foster is cultivating about establishing a spaceport here have been going to making the astronaut feel a part of the journey,’ an experience that is primarily ‘terrestrial’. Over his on for decades, the process has been comparatively FOSTER + PARTNERS

Above: the recess in the roof Right: despite the 10,220 sq forms a clerestory that allows m construction site, it will still sunlight to penetrate the be a tight fit to house a fleet entire facility of craft at full capacity

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quick since Virgin Galactic made real the taxpayers. When local counties voted to tax engineer and ex-SS officer Werhner von Braun played proposition of commercial space travel. Three-and-a- themselves for 10 years to raise the $60m a key role in establishing the Space Age in the 1940s half years after the competition closed, the project is contribution, it was on the understanding that and first developed rockets capable of going into setting the precedent for other planned spaceports. Virgin Galactic’s 20-year lease of the plot alone space. Along with being home to the venerable New The general response to the spaceport has been would pay back that investment, not withstanding Mexico Museum of Space History, the Solar hospitable, in some cases excitable. In the town of the money it will generate from tourism and Observatory and the Very Large Array Radio Truth or Consequences (T or C), 48km north-west developments. It seems though, that the project has Telescope, New Mexico has also hosted the of the site, an Italian restaurant serves progressed too far and too much has been invested impressive XPrize Cup – the catalyst for Burt Spaceportobello – a plated replica of the building for the project to be shelved. Rutan’s original SpaceShipOne. The spaceport is made out of mushrooms. While the Las Cruces’ In Savage’s mind the benefits are obvious next in an extensive line of trailblazers. Sun Newspaper has been reporting on its progress regardless of the political context. ‘New Mexico is There is an expectation among architects and since the beginning. The project has come up one of the worst performing states in terms of business people that new opportunities will arise in against opposition, however, from those critical of education and work prospects,’ he says. Savage was the area after the first launch. Though it remains a its target audience: the few who can afford the brought up in New Mexico and moved away for landscape of propositions, pieces of land have $200,000 ticket into space. work 20 years ago. He returned with his family three already changed hands. In one area west of Interstate Now there is a new concern about the project’s years ago when the spaceport project began. ‘I see it 25, a group of businessmen have purchased a plot status. Last November’s US midterm elections saw as an economic development project,’ says Savage. where they plan to build hotels, restaurants and Governor Bill Richardson – after whom Spaceport But it is hard to convince people of long-term gains malls to service the anticipated demand. While America’s runway was named in a dedication in the current financial climate. The bigger picture, further north, near T or C, another party has laid out ceremony last October – replaced by Republican explains Savage, is a project that changes the a detailed master plan for development. Susana Martinez. Following the Democrat’s defeat, expectations of a place, a people, or a State. As the birthplace of sub-orbital space tourism, Spaceport America’s executive director Rick Indeed, New Mexico is already a prime Spaceport America marks another chapter in new Homans resigned. Support at local and state destination for space-related tourism. The town of Mexico’s history of pioneering journeys. If government level has been vital because a large Alamogordo, 120km east of the site, is home to the successful, it could also bring an unprecedented portion of the $209m budget has come from Space Museum and was the town where German economic revival to the region . SPACEPORT AMERICA SPACEPORT BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 B03 042 Spacecraft design2 pm hw2 ef:B10 ?? ??/Interview 25/1/11 10:26 Page 44

42 OPENING SPACE TRAVEL TO THE MASSES IS NOW A MATTER OF WHEN, NOT IF. SCALED COMPOSITES, ONE OF THE PIONEERS OF AERONAUTICAL DESIGN AND ENGINEERING HAS DEVELOPED THE CRAFT THAT VIRGIN GALACTIC WILL BE USING TO FERRY PASSENGERS ABOVE THE EARTH’S ATMOSPHERE. PETER KELLY DISCOVERS THE PHILOSOPHY BEHIND A COMPANY THAT IS DETERMINED TO OPEN A NEW CHAPTER IN HUMAN FLIGHT

SPACECRAFT DESIGN

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‘It’s a paradigm shift; it’s a game changer,’ says Matt Stinemetze, lead engineer at Scaled Composites, the California-based company behind SpaceShipTwo. ‘If you take six people at a time into space, no matter if it’s just four or five minutes of weightlessness, the fact is you get the rocket ride, you get the zero G, you see the curvature of the Earth, you hear the silence.’ This is the experience offered to the world’s first commercial passengers – or ‘astronauts’ – when they take their trips out of the Earth’s atmosphere. SpaceShipTwo, the craft that will carry them into suborbital space and then glide Ω

Scaled Composites predicts that craft like SpaceShipOne and WhiteKnightOne could transport up to 1000 new visitors into space with the first year COURTESY OF VULCAN PRODUCTIONS AND DISCOVERY CHANNEL AND DISCOVERY OF VULCAN PRODUCTIONS COURTESY BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 B03 042 Spacecraft design2 pm hw2 ef:B10 ?? ??/Interview 25/1/11 10:27 Page 46

44 THIERRY BOCCON-GIBOD

back to Earth, is the latest in a long line of talismanic founder, Burt Rutan. He innovative craft designed by Scaled. Based officially retires this April. //ALL YOU SEE IS THIS BIG CABIN in Mojave in California, it has been behind Rutan established the company in 1982. WITH BIG WINDOWS WITH THIS some of the most experimental aircraft of Under his guidance the company quickly HUGE VOLUME INSIDE. IT’S the last 30 years. gained a reputation for creating experimental Developed with Virgin Galactic, it is aircraft with innovative technology and FUNDAMENTALLY ABOUT THE MOST plastered with the company’s branding, and unusual forms. In 1986 the Scaled-designed IMPORTANT PAYLOAD ON THE has frequently been photographed in the Voyager aircraft, co-piloted by Rutan’s vicinity of a grinning Richard Branson. brother Dick, became the first aircraft to fly PLANET, WHICH IS PEOPLE// SpaceShipTwo, however, with its rounded around the world without stopping or cabin section, large circular windows and refueling. Using carbon-composite materials prominent, mobile rudders at the rear, is and a design that reduced weight and drag to very much in Scaled’s tradition of designing a minimum, it was a milestone in the aircraft with unusual forms to answer history of aircraft design and is now held in extreme challenges. It is also the first craft the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air to have been designed by Scaled without and Space Museum. the direct, hands-on involvement of its Just as remarkably, the Model 202

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45 COURTESY OF VULCAN PRODUCTIONS AND DISCOVERY CHANNEL AND DISCOVERY OF VULCAN PRODUCTIONS COURTESY MARK GREENBERG

Boomerang, designed in the mid-1990s, beautiful shape of an airplane probably is significantly it also pioneered the Above left: SpaceShipTwo turned conventional aircraft engineering one that has good performance. I know ‘feathering’ atmospheric re-entry system, under construction. This on its head with an asymmetric twin- that for something to have the range of for which the rear half of the wing and the craft will carry the first commercial ‘astronauts’ engine design. With one wing shorter than Voyager, it has to have these real long, twin tail booms fold upward along a hinge into suborbital space the other and the engines’ lopsided slender wings so frail that they bend way running the length of the wing. This positioning – one mounted in the main up. So to me when I look at that facility removes the need for computer Above right: Scaled fuselage, the other on a left boom – it was application I see wonderful aesthetics in driven flight control systems or the need to Composite’s designed to be a multi-engine airplane that the shape of a wing.’ rely on the pilots. Instead it uses SpaceShipOne. Rutan says would not become dangerously difficult The move into aerospace design has aerodynamic design to permit a heat-free that the aircraft only look to control in the event of failure of a brought Scaled worldwide attention once re-entry followed by a runway landing. beautiful because of their good performance single engine. It remains a unique again. With funding from Microsoft This project was a crowning – and experiment in aircraft design. co-founder Paul Allen, Rutan’s final – triumph in Rutan’s career. In Above: one model of Rutan has always had a no-nonsense, SpaceShipOne won the Ansari X Prize as recent years, partly because of ill health, the WhiteKnightTwo, pragmatic approach to the appearance of the first manned private space flight. 67-year-old Rutan has been stepping back the VSS Enterprise, in his aircraft: ‘Aesthetics play a role when This success demonstrated the viability from the limelight and the hands-on mid-glide flight you have finished an airplane, get it ready of Rutan’s proposal for an air-launched design work. The team of designers and to fly and you paint it white,’ he says. ‘A craft for suborbital flight. Most engineers that he assembled are taking the Ω

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Above: the new lead on design and engineering – both iteration is a rocket-powered spaceplane such craft will be more important. They are generation of engineers at Scaled Composites conceptual and real. that launches horizontally from an aircraft not just competing in terms of technology, is taking into account Stinemetze became the lead at around 15,240m – which is already above but in capturing the imagination of a the aesthetic of its conceptual designer on SpaceShipTwo, and most of the Earth’s atmosphere. If there are paying public. ‘SpaceShipTwo is just a sexy spacecraft designs has increasingly become the public face of problems during the boost phase, the rocket – very flashy and in your face,’ says Scaled’s aerospace projects. He now works rocket motor can be shut down, allowing Stinemetze. He also believes that these with a team of designers and engineers on the spaceship to glide back to the runway. missions are going to bring a whole new the aerospace projects. To this team, Its carrier plane – or mothership – generation of engineers and designers into Rutan has been a lifelong hero. ‘I’d been WhiteKnightTwo is the largest all- the industry, just as the Apollo missions watching Burt and his home-built stuff in composite aircraft ever built. did in the 1960s and 1970s: ‘If this is not magazines ever since I was a little kid,’ It seems that the new design team going to inspire kids, nothing will.’ says Stinemetze. He describes his job taking Rutan’s place are more taken with Yet apart from the specific appeal to interview at Scaled as being like ‘going to the aesthetics of spacecraft: ‘I wouldn’t say designers, there is another significance to meet Mohammed or something and I’m we go out trying to make the aesthetics the spacecraft created by Scaled and its coming to Mecca.’ very sci-fi,’ says Stinemetze, ‘but certainly competitors. Though the first commercial Rutan’s approach was distinguished by we spend time on the layout of the vehicle, ‘astronauts’ will be the immensely a belief in taking risks with design. ‘You we spend a lot more time with the swoop, wealthy, the long-term effect of such can only claim you’re doing research if half and the sexiness.’ This is partly down to a missions could be profound: ‘You’re talking the people – and I’m talking about half the different outlook – a generation inspired by not just a couple of people in forty years, experts – believe that the goal is the seemingly unintended aesthetics of we’re talking potentially 500 or 1000 in impossible,’ he says. SpaceShipTwo Rutan’s work – but it is also because these the first year. So you can just very quickly continues Rutan’s ideals, yet is a new craft are being launched in a whole build up the amount of people that have development rather than a step-change in new market. There is now a greater been to space and see the Earth in a totally engineering. Twice the size of the Rutan competition than ever before for Scaled’s new way,’ says Stinemetze. The original, it is designed to carry six leading position. In December 2010, experience is likely to inspire new ideas, passengers and two pilots, it resembles a another California-based company, SpaceX, and create a new market that will business jet more than a work of launched Dragon, the first spacecraft ever eventually bring the price for such trips extravagant experimentation: ‘All you see placed in orbit and recovered by a private down to an affordable level. is a big cabin with big windows with this company. Stinemetze describes that project Having spent 30 years making aviation huge volume inside. It’s fundamentally as another ‘game-changer’. and aerospace design extraordinary, the about the most important payload on the As these companies enter an greatest achievement of Scaled Composites planet, which is people,’ says Stinemetze. increasingly competitive market, the would be to make journeys into space a As with SpaceShipOne, this new aesthetic appeal and emblematic role of mundane fact of life .

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48 COMMENT There are a few obvious issues of design for astronauts: THE DESIGNERS OF SPACE privacy features heavily in such an intimate, shared space. Across the board, space-related design is quite conservative and the STATIONS NEED TO BE MORE challenge is mostly prosaic – how to have a toilet on-board a space shuttle, for example. The design itself isn’t dissimilar to an IMAGINATIVE IN ORDER TO airplane lavatory, except that it is probably the only toilet in the world with a seatbelt to avoid floating away when using it! When REFINE SPACE EXPLORATION there’s sufficient motivation, humans are willing to put up with less comfort for a short amount of time, like living out of a tent FOR COMMERCIAL TRAVEL, on camping trips. So, when NASA sets guidelines for the particular amount of volume of space required, related to the SAYS NASA ASTRONAUT need for comfortable working and living conditions, often there is waste and inefficient design. When creating a design for an JEFFREY HOFFMAN environment, there’s no ‘one size fits all’– it is dependent on the ‘ type of environment and the mission. In each circumstance, ‘ designers should test the guidelines themselves and work to what Growing up in the 1950s, it was difficult not to be enthralled by their own experience tells them: there’s no easy way to explain the idea of space travel. While I was at school in 1957, the how it feels in space. Sputnik satellite was launched and four years later, President Recent developments in design have been the inclusion of Kennedy pledged to have a man on the moon within a decade. advanced communication technology: it is now possible to Magazines and comics that were filled with images of astronauts telephone anywhere on Earth from outer space. The problem of and spaceships all conspired to build excitement and curiosity. boredom in space travel has been the topic of some recent Space exploration had been a fascination of mine since my father discussion, but certainly on spacecrafts, there is no time to be took me to visit the Planetarium in New York City as a boy. At bored. It is more a case of isolation: you have a beautiful view that time, however, astronauts were all military test pilots, but you can’t smell the flowers or hold your family, so which simply didn’t interest me, so becoming a heroic astronaut communication has been a huge progression for astronauts was never a realistic prospect for me. and cosmonauts alike. I became an astrophysicist, studying first at Harvard and I recently attended the announcement of the winner of the followed by a post-doctorate at Leicester University in the UK. SHIFTboston Moon competition. It was an excellent starting On returning to the US in the mid-1970s, I envisioned a career in point for the exploration of design and to get people thinking space research at MIT but my life took a different turn. At the about the serious possibilities of lunar habitation. However, if we time, NASA was working on the development of the Space tried to implement them, a lot of the designs would fall down Shuttle and put out a call for new astronauts. The Shuttle because of engineering problems. One of the biggest challenges in required a crew of seven, only two of whom needed to be test achieving habitation on the moon is people’s desire to have a pilots. The rest could be engineers, scientists or medical doctors. great view of their environment but due to the vast amount of So I decided to apply and was selected in 1978. It took two years surface radiation, people staying on the moon will probably have of basic training before I was qualified to be assigned to a flight to live underground. How do you deal with that? You need a lot of into space. Since then I have been on five space missions, the material between you and the lunar surface. It’s details such as most famous of which was flying up to fix the Hubble space these that are the most fascinating and need focus. That is station in 1993, with my last flight taking place in 1996 after 20 architecture’s challenge . years as an astronaut with NASA. Working with NASA, you become very sensitive to how humans use architecture in a weightless environment. Through training exercises you learn about a ‘local vertical’ – in space you Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman have no idea of what is up or down. There is no right way up: one is Professor of the compartment’s floor might be another’s ceiling or work surface. Practice of The architectural design of a spacecraft, therefore, is significant Aerospace Engineering in the to the crew’s ability to orientate itself. In the old Russian Mir Department of space station, there were different modules, each of which had a Aeronautics and different orientation, often leading to temporary disorientation Astronautics at MIT. with the crew moved from one module to another. He is a former NASA astronaut who has In the International Space Station, there have been efforts made five space made to maintain a local vertical throughout the entire station. flights, becoming With a mix of American, Russian, European and Japanese the first astronaut designers and engineers responsible for building the station’s to log 1,000 hours modules, there was a wildly different compass guiding each one. of flight time aboard the It can be dangerous to have significant discontinuity, so Space Shuttle uniformity is a major part of the ongoing design process there. 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PROLONGED TRIPS TO MARS AND BEYOND HAVE BEEN PUT ON THE BACKBURNER AS FAR AS GOVERNMENTS ARE CONCERNED. BUT ACTIVITY IS FEVERISH IN THE WORLD OF DESIGN FOR COMMERCIAL SPACE TRAVEL. AS RICHARD WILLIAMS EXPLAINS, THE FUTURE OF MANNED SPACEFLIGHT IS SURPRISINGLY CLOSE TO HOME ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: NYEIN AUNG/LIFTPORT GROUP NYEIN AUNG/LIFTPORT ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 B03 048 Space2 pm ef hw:B10 ?? ??/Interview 24/1/11 16:35 Page 51

51 SPACE FOR SALE

At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in NASA’s budget was to be increased by $6bn Main image: a robotic lift Florida, one of the more curious attractions at a time of drastic public expenditure cuts as envisioned by LiftPort. is the Rocket Garden. Here, picturesquely elsewhere. But as everyone in the audience It is designed to carry cargo and crew along a arranged, and surrounded by greenery is a knew, Obama had presided over the carbon nanotube collection of launch vehicles from the early decommissioning of America’s only space composite tether linking years of America’s manned space vehicle capable of transporting humans a mobile offshore sea programme: Redstone, Atlas, Titan and into space – the Space Shuttle, in operation platform to a Saturn boosters, and Mercury, Gemini and since 1981 – and he had also in effect geostationary Apollo capsules into which you can climb. cancelled the only replacement, then counterweight It’s a most affecting sight, especially as the under development, Project Constellation sun sets at the end of the day, when it gives with its Orion crew module. Both actions out precisely the message that NASA would leave the US without an indigenous would like to suppress: that the era of space vehicle. manned spaceflight is, to all intents and The situation outside the US is purposes, over. Listening to President scarcely more optimistic. The Russians Obama’s speech at Kennedy on the future remain the only serious contenders to the of the space programme on 15 April 2010, US’s aged crown. However the Soviet space it was hard not to come to that exact programme’s failure to develop reusable conclusion. Obama’s words were upbeat. vehicles was well-known, and its vehicles, America would land humans on the moon although reliable, are antiquated. A new again, and Mars, and even an asteroid, and launch system, with a new crew module Ω

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and booster design, the Rus-M, was applications of technology developed Above: a conceptual remote: only an hour’s drive away, if you unveiled at the MAKS air show in 2009, elsewhere or ‘downstream’ activity to use sketch for a space station could drive straight up. The problem of but it did not seem to be going anywhere its parlance. The classic example given was to be used as a getting there, however, is ferocious. To get counterweight at the end fast as long as 50 per cent of the agency’s satellite broadcasting. A lot of activity was beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, requires an of the space elevator budget was taken up with the International ‘upstream’ (created in the UK) however, tether awful lot of fuel, and to get into orbit, or Space Station. India and China promise with satellite design and building. That it beyond, you need to travel faster than the much, but are unlikely to deliver for could now say it was doing something Opposite: the concept of planet’s rotation: Mach 30 or so. The decades. China’s mission to Mars would indicated creative accounting, certainly, a space elevator was traditional solution to all this, the multi- take place by the agency’s own estimation but also that the nature of space had brought to a wider stage, chemically-fuelled rocket, leads to a some fifty years hence. The European changed. No longer was it the place for audience by Arthur C. prodigious amount of waste, not just of Clarke in his 1979 novel Space Agency (ESA) has never developed a governments to establish international fuel, but of hardware, generally used only The Fountains of manned capability, and shows only political ambitions, rather it’s become a Paradise once. Now there are multiple possibilities, episodic interest in developing one. place to make money. much encouraged by the X-Prize For fans of Star Trek, or anyone (like The commercial exploitation of space Foundation, which in 1996 offered $10m this writer) who watched NASA’s moon has had three peculiar effects on the way for the first private organisation to send a landings when they happened, history space travel is understood. First, is the manned vehicle into space and return, seems to be in reverse. However, any more or less total emphasis on the near- repeating the feat within two weeks. The gloom is arguably misplaced. Manned Earth environment. Even the remaining, competition produced 26 serious entrants, spaceflight might be about to enjoy an highly ambitious national programmes and almost as many technical solutions: unprecedented boom in which more people have none of the urgency that Apollo had chemical rockets with reusable capsules, fly routinely into space, more often than in the 1960s. Space travel, for the time spaceplanes launched from rockets ever before. But for that to happen, the being, means just getting up there, rather vertically, then gliding to Earth, nature of space travel must change. The than going very far; this new limit is partly spaceplanes launched in the air from earliest phases of manned space travel, commercial, but partly medical, informed carrier planes, rockets launched from represented in culture as much as in actual by better knowledge about the difficulty of balloons. The winner was Burt Rutan’s events, were expressions of individual sustaining life outside Earth’s atmosphere. Scaled Composites entry, now developed heroism and national prestige: Tom Wolfe’s Second is the new geography of the space commercially as Virgin Galactic. classic account, The Right Stuff, captures business. If commercial rather than The X-Prize challenge was for its exuberant spirit. Contemporary space national interests now predominate, then suborbital flight, and it is this area that is travel is likely to be more prosaic, driven by the liveliest areas of activity might as perhaps the most publicly visible, for it is commercial considerations. easily be found in the Mojave desert, or through Richard Branson’s activities with For some background to this view, a an Oxfordshire business park, as Houston Virgin Galactic that a plausible business report released in November 2010 by the or Baikonur. model has evolved. This is based on a fledgling UK Space Agency is worth a read. Third, and most interestingly, is the joyride into space for the well-off in a The agency itself was created only in April, proliferation of new launch systems – not vehicle the size of a business jet. Air- to some sniggering from the British media just launch vehicles, but entire new launched from a specially designed mother who noted its unglamorous location approaches to getting people and things ship, it reaches an altitude of some 60 (Swindon) and minuscule budget. And the into space. It is the quality of invention miles before gliding back to earth. report itself, The Size and Health of the that perhaps best characterises the space Close in concept to Branson’s project UK Space Industry, is on the surface really business in its new form. Where other is XCOR Aerospace’s Lynx spaceplane, rather dull: no heroic vision here, not even aspects of aerospace have seen design which also plans to take paying customers any pictures. What it did describe, though, mature and only incremental change (think in 2012. It undercuts Virgin by $100,000, was a surprisingly big, dynamic, private of the design of civil airliners, with the and the plane itself is smaller and simpler, sector growing far faster than anything else same configuration defining virtually all a single-stage design with no need for a in the UK economy – its annual growth types, regardless of size), the space business mother vehicle. It seems equally serious: rate of 8.9 per cent since 1999 suggested an has seen invention flourish. Nowhere is in November 2010, the Los Angeles Times area growing twice as fast as the much- this clearer than in the area of launch reported that from 2014, the Dutch airline touted ‘creative industries’. A lot of this technology. Space, as maverick astronomer KLM would offer XCOR suborbital flights activity, the report admitted, was Fred Hoyle once remarked, is hardly as a perk for (very) frequent fliers.

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//SPACE, AS MAVERICK ASTRONOMER FRED HOYLE ONCE REMARKED, IS HARDLY REMOTE: ONLY AN HOUR’S DRIVE AWAY, IF YOU COULD DRIVE STRAIGHT UP. THE PROBLEM OF GETTING THERE, HOWEVER, IS FEROCIOUS //

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Above: an illustration of As suborbital flights have caught substantive commercialisation of space will development, and for several companies to the space station Mir by media attention, there is significant occur with a different technology be working exclusively on it, among them Nyein Aung. The image activity in the area of commercial heavy altogether, one that can offer a 90 per cent, the LiftPort group. In last year’s highly was used on LiftPort’s launch systems for humans. The satellite or more, reduction on launch cost. That prestigious series, the Royal Institution publicity tickets as a way to build public interest in launch business has long been requires (to invoke American physicist Christmas Lectures, hosted by the BBC, space elevators commercialised, but NASA has made clear Thomas Kuhn) something of a paradigm the materials scientist and engineer, Mark that it wishes to encourage the shift. One such shift might be found in an Miodownik concluded with a passionate commercialisation of crew launches too. Oxfordshire business park, where a small argument for the construction of a space Its COTS (Commercial Orbit company called Reaction Engines (see page elevator, as well as a physically eloquent Transportation Services) programme, 27) has been developing a radical new demonstration of its guiding principles (he initiated in 2006, makes provision for the vehicle. Reaction’s proposition is concluded the lecture in mid-air, attached development of private manned spaceflight fundamentally a business-oriented one: a to a tether). (‘COTS-D’). The major sub-programme reusable, single-stage to orbit (SSTO) While we wait for the space elevator, supported by COTS is SpaceX’s Dragon launch vehicle with engines that breathe however, we might reflect on what is capsule, for up to seven crew, successfully air, but also work in space. The vehicle achievable now by anyone with some tested unmanned in December 2010, and itself, the needle-like SKYLON has real basic DIY skills. Since the mid-2000s, a the only serious replacement in sight for glamour; it’s capable – if it works – of handful of amateurs with weather balloons either the Space Shuttle or Russia’s speeds four times that of the rocket planes, and digital cameras have achieved what, venerable Soyuz capsule. Unremarkable- and enough to get into orbit. until recently, only national governments looking, it has two innovations: it is But the most elegant game-changer could achieve – high-res images of the reusable, and has retractable landing gear. would unquestionably be a space elevator Earth from above. Robert Harrison’s However, neither the suborbital (first popularised by sci-fi writer Arthur C. March 2010 experiment launched from trippers, nor SpaceX are offering anything Clarke in his 1979 novel The Fountains of Yorkshire, and attained a height of close radically different: they’re nimble and Paradise), a 36,000 km-long tether linking a to thirty miles – not far off what XCOR opportunistic, but their technologies refine geostationary satellite with Earth, and up want to achieve with their first flight. what already exists, and the financial which – slowly and silently – would climb The resulting pictures were quite brilliant, savings offered, one suspects, come from a a vehicle, delivering satellites and people and the whole exercise, Harrison thought, relative lack of bureaucracy. XCOR has into orbit. It’s a serious proposition: serious cost no more than £500. just 25 people on its payroll. A much more enough for NASA to sponsor prizes in its NASA take note. .

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57 The Mars Desert Research Station in Utah is a NASA training facility where Peldszus carried out her olfactory study on a crew in training

‘In London there are so many designers, it’s applicability of sci-fi film sets. just as ridiculous to say I am going to be a ‘As a designer there is no set route for graphic designer, as it is a space designer’, doing this job, I did a BA in arts says Regina Peldszus. The German-born management, then a Masters in design graduate of Central Saint Martins has spent studies at Central Saint Martins’ says the last seven years researching and Peldszus. It was during her Masters that designing for long-term, manned spaceflight Peldszus decided she wanted to pursue her habitability. She has collaborated with lifelong passion for space design, applying international space organisations, from the for PhD funding from the UK’s Arts and European Space Agency (ESA) to the Humanities Research Council while American Institute of Aeronautics and working as a design intern in China. The Astronautics (AIAA). Her work ranges from application was successful, and the recent the mundane concerns of boredom in long completion of her PhD at Kingston space missions, to the real-world University is another step in Peldszus’ Ω

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58 ALL PHOTOS: IBMP/OLEG VOLOSHIN ALL PHOTOS:

Above: the Mars 500 journey that began as a child fascinated project in Moscow will with science fiction. ‘The street I first house 6 astronauts for lived on in Berlin was called Cosmonaut 520 days for a simulated Street,’ she says. ‘As a child I had a poster mission to Mars of a section through the Starship Above centre: an interior Enterprise, I was fascinated with the living of one of the four MARS 500 PROJECT MOSCOW quarters and how it was occupied.’ EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY hermetically sealed The Mars 500 project is a collaborative Peldszus now operates out of a shared The ESA was established in its current modules. The study will study between the Institute for office space with design collective form in 1975. It consists of 18 member provide an insight into Biomedical Problems and the ESA. Six Supercollider in Dalston, London. They states and employs over 2,000 staff. Its the effects of long-term isolation Astronauts (three Russian, one Italian, often collaborate and convened a space headquarters are based in Paris with one French and one Chinese) will live architecture symposium together at last auxiliary locations in Germany, Spain, in a hermetically-sealed habitat 550 year’s London Festival of Architecture. the Netherlands, Italy and the UK. The cubic metres in volume. The project will The freedom and financial stability ESA is responsible for coordinating the simulate the 250-day journey to Mars, provided by the PhD offered Peldszus an European space programme and a 20-day mission and the 250-day opportunity to define the role of a establishing a single European position return. The study will focus on the spaceflight designer in her own terms. Her on the understanding of Earth, the solar physiological and psychological effects work can be broadly categorised into three system and the universe. In 2007 it of prolonged isolation. Peldszus areas: research and development for published the European Space Policy, implemented her clothing study with manned spaceflight; design consultancy which tackles such strategy issues as Ralf Heckel, and clothing sponsor Bruno for live industry products; and outreach security, defence and accessibility to Banani at the facility. The study began projects that bring Peldszus’ ideas and space. To date it has carried out over in June 2010 and will end in November those of other space designers and 190 unmanned launches and provided 2011. A similar facility exists in Utah strategists to the general public. ‘My the International Space Station with the in the USA. work is about establishing an applied Columbus laboratory. framework that will define a new design practice. It is an incubator for ideas that are tailored to my interests and plug the gaps of what still needs to be researched.’ Peldszus has clearly found a niche. With the commercialisation of many space programmes, the emphasis on research and application of design is largely focused on the comfort and aesthetics of short-haul

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Above right: Peldszus’ manned flights. Despite the scaling back of what is already going on’, she says with a diagram describes the funding for government-led space smile. One of the key areas of study spatial layers involved in programmes, the European Space Agency affecting these long-term missions is the deep space missions still foresees manned exploration missions autonomy of the crew. Peldszus’ work to Mars being undertaken by 2030, NASA examines how the highly engineered and Russia envision it happening sooner. spacecraft and life-support systems can These missions will involve a crew living promote the psychological well-being of in a capsule habitat for around 500 days. the astronauts through human-centred AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICS Aside from the physical risks of sustaining design. In Peldszus’ words, ‘We are looking AND ASTRONAUTICS life in a hostile atmosphere, Peldszus’ for the ambiguity in the systems, areas that The AIAA was founded more than research examines the minimisation of can be examined beyond their immediate 75 years ago and is the world’s largest psychological challenges and stressors. application, which can improve the technical society devoted to the global Equally, much of the investigation well-being of the crew.’ Her work aerospace profession. It acts as a into human response to space travel, encompasses the physical design of meeting place for its 35,000 members outside of medical and physiological study, environments, the creation of games, the from industry, government and comes from anecdotal evidence. The habitability effects of growing plant life in academia across the fields of science, Goldberg report of 1987 warned of the microgravity as well as the role of science space and defence. The AIAA publishes lack of objective data on the behavioural fiction films as scenarios for psychological policy and strategy as well as offering responses of crews on space missions, and habitability. It looks to minimise negative information exchanges, professional highlighted that, in time, with larger crews behaviour in astronauts through the development and awards among its and longer missions, the dangers need to application of known techniques that members. Each year it is responsible be fully understood. Studies into the promote mental well-being. for organising conferences that long-term effects of isolation, such as the One of Peldszus’ most recent projects bring together the expertise in the projects in Utah and Moscow (see panel was a study into the olfactory environment US and internationally. on page 58), are now providing an avenue of crewed spacecraft. The tradition has for research that, until now, has been for spacecraft to be designed as odour remained abstract. neutral. In the closed environment of the ‘The people who worked on the early Habitability Project on Sensory missions are retiring now. NASA leaves a Stimulation in Space in Utah, Peldszus long paper trail, the Russians don’t. There undertook an experiment with Irene L. is a lot of tacit knowledge, getting hold of it Schlacht, of the Man-Machine-Systems is difficult,’ says Peldszus. Part of the Group in Berlin, into the responses of designer’s success is down to finding ways isolated individuals to specific smells. to introduce her studies into existing or Odour causes multiple psychological planned experiments. ‘You have to hijack responses, from triggering memories Ω

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// ’WE ARE LOOKING FOR THE AMBIGUITY IN THE SYSTEMS, AREAS THAT CAN BE EXAMINED BEYOND THEIR IMMEDIATE APPLICATION, WHICH CAN IMPROVE THE WELL-BEING OF THE CREW.’ //

Top: a graphic from (known as the Proust Effect) to altering the Production designs 1955-2009’. This Peldszus’ study into the perception of the immediate environment. explored speculative design in science clothing programme that This basic trial supplied the crew in the fiction, placing particular emphasis on astronauts use. It seeks project with a series of vials of specific Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. to provide variation odours. ‘Initially, the crew was dismissive The study recognised that the within the standard issue uniform of the trial,’ says Peldszus, ‘yet as time scenarios depicted in science fiction, went on they found the smells to be particularly Kubrick’s seminal film, Above: providing evocative and invigorating.’ were the product of many years of variation in even the The implementation of stimuli that consultation, research and development INTERNATIONAL SPACE UNIVERSITY most mundane items, reduce the feelings of monotony and by multidisciplinary design teams, which Based in Strasbourg, France, the like underwear, can have isolation is also explored in another of were comparable to those working on the ISU offers courses and one-year a positive effect on psychological well-being Peldszus’ studies. Along with Ralf Heckel, scenarios predicted for long-term Masters in disciplines relating to space of the International Space Education spaceflight. Through this study, programmes and enterprises. Founded Institute (SEI), Leipzig, she developed conclusions were drawn about the general in 1987, it provides graduates and a clothing line that provided variation environment and interior colours of professionals with research from the standard mission uniform. The spacecraft, the organisation of activity opportunities as well as specific clothing programme gave the crew control zones, the provisions available to crews, curriculums ranging from engineering over their appearance and also broke up entertainment and leisure activities. The and space science to space policy and the monotony of routine; there were findings within the fictional narratives, law. The ISU’s mission is to inspire even items designed to be worn on special when analysed alongside the reality of enthusiasm, promote understanding occasions. ‘The physics of space travel completed or ongoing missions such as and encourage the innovative does not allow life on Earth to be the ISS, could then be integrated to create development of space for peaceful replicated. The luxury of being able to more robust mission scenarios. purposes. More than 3,000 students wash or replace clothes is not possible. For some, Peldszus’ work might appear from over 100 different countries have So the variation has to be in place before outlandish and speculative, but the graduated from here. hand’. It is the introduction of surprise, research liberates our understanding of the variation and delight to a system that everyday as well as providing frameworks is perceived as finite or closed. ‘Personally, for mankind thriving beyond Earth. it’s not about designing one single thing, ‘Spaceflight will change the way we look there are so many variables’, says Peldszus. at our world,’ wrote Peldszus in Looking In 2010, the AIAA published a paper Over the Edge (2007). ‘By seeing things by Peldszus, Professor Hilary Dalke we take for granted in a different light, (Peldszus’ PhD supervisor) and Dr Chris we abandon set ways and prejudices… Welch (part of the Astronautics and Space The insights of human spaceflight make Systems Group at Kingston University) citizens look over the edge. Not just the entitled ‘Science fiction film as design edge of our earthly atmosphere, but above scenario exercise for design habitability: all, the edge in our heads.’ .

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When released in 1982, Tron Disney is also keen to pursue Above: Olivia Wilde A chair inspired by the pioneered something new in film: collaborations with furniture as Quorra and new sci-fi film Tron: Legacy the hybridisation of real and digital manufacturers in the ‘real world’, so Garrett Hedlund as environments. Telling the story of a as to reach consumers in the mass Sam Flynn in a still from Tron: Legacy marks the second step computer hacker trapped in the market. Last year saw the launch of virtual space of a game defined by the Cappellini and Walt Disney Left: an early ink of the Cappellini and a grid system, Tron soon gained Signature series, featuring designs sketch of the Tron cult status. The film has had a by such studios as Nendo. The chair by Dror Walt Disney Signature major impact on redefining design result of a further step in this Benshetrit, which aesthetics not only in the realm of collaborative project is the Tron came after seeing the film collaboration. Gian Luca computer games but also in the Armchair, which bridges design and automotive and fashion industries. cinema production. Designed by Amadei reports Similarly Tron: Legacy, the long- New York-based practice Studio Dror awaited sequel to Disney’s Benshetrit, the chairs sport a groundbreaker, displays a futuristic yet cartoonish look, breathtaking array of digital special which although charming might be effects, marking yet another misunderstood at first sight. milestone in the evolution of The irregular forms of the chair computer graphics. were inspired by the intersecting From the dynamic, streamlined planes of the digital landscape Light Cycle – redesigned by German created in Tron: Legacy. ‘I am concept designer Daniel Simon – to particularly interested in expressing the interiors (a nod to Stanley and translating the idea of collision Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey), between the physical and the the film speaks volumes about digital’ explains Benshetrit, ‘the design. Everything seems tangible freedom of the digital and the and real. This was the aim of constraints of the physical.’ director Joseph Kosinski, a Manufactured by leading Italian mechanical engineer by training furniture company Cappellini, the with a Master of Architecture from project is the second with Disney Columbia University in New York. after their first collection in 2010.

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Benshetrit explored the people find their inspiration in finish of its surfaces. This is further interaction between the digital and movies – it becomes a strong enhanced by the choice of colour, 64 the physical for Rosenthal with his cultural vector. If this vector which is not easy to define – Vase of Phases. That product gives conveys inspiration for designing somewhere in between grey and the appearance of a vase frozen in home/interior design pieces, then petrol blue. The high level of detail Ω time just as it is being smashed that is part of our environment,’ comes from the rotomoulding into pieces. Beyond such fancy explains Benshetrit. process that Cappellini adapted effects though, Benshetrit is Despite its angular and specifically for this project by interested in the cultural content unapologetic appearance, the Tron carefully calibrating a new formula of contemporary design. chair is a surprisingly haptic piece of recycled plastic. This technology, ‘Today, more than ever before, of design, with the smooth, silky which has been around for over a

Left: a hand- rendered sketch exploring colour and the casting of shadows

Right: the first full-scale prototype constructed from cardboard boxes and masking tape, used to understand the intersection of volumes

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century, consists of one full-scale boundaries of design and still experimenting in getting the mould mounted on a rotating base. production, to offer products that right formula for the plastic in A liquid mix of plastic is sprayed are original in design and order to make an even more 65 into the mould; as the mould starts technological content.’ emotional object that is smoother to rotate, the liquid adheres to its The biggest challenge for to the touch’ says Cappellini. surfaces and dries. Cappellini in production was the When the Italian entrepreneur ‘Other companies refused to investment in tools for the mould was first invited by Disney to manufacture the mould for the Tron and working with the plastic. Four consider a design collaboration with chair’ explains Giulio Cappellini, ‘I individually customised pieces of the American firm, he tried to do believe that to be competitive, the Tron chair were presented at understand what the two might we need to continuously push the Design Miami in December. ‘We are have in common. ‘When I visited Ω

Left: a wireframe computer rendering exploring how each volume intersects with another. Some of the otherwise straight grids are then distorted to add contrast

Right: one of the final renders of the Tron Armchair presented before production began

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Disney’s HQ in California for the Armchair by Dror has brought new first time, I discovered an attention to the project and 66 extraordinary world, the spirit of Cappellini is moving forward with Disney can still be sensed in there.’ determination and excitement. Walt Disney’s visionary interest in ‘This project has brought some Ω design pushed him to promote such positive challenges, Disney is very projects as the Monsanto House of open-minded and responsive. We the Future in 1957. have more work ahead to finalise When the Cappellini-Disney the Tron chair,’ he concludes. project was first launched in Milan The new Tron Armchair will be last year, it was received with some officially launched at the Saloni scepticism, however the Tron Milan in April 2011.

Left: a cast of the underneath surface of the chair, which includes four feet. The roto-moulding technique allows large pieces to be produced at once

Right: a rear view of one of the four Tron chairs presented in Miami. Each chair was hand-painted by Dror Benshetrit

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Above: a still from Below left: a view Tron: Legacy. The of the final Tron house slots into chair showing its the cliff face, its many irregular futuristic interiors facets in detail juxtapose the and the smooth, rawness of the silky texture of rock formation its surfaces

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Parapan.indd 1 21/1/11 10:40:05 B03 69 rev1 hw2 pk:B09 077/rev1/ki 20/1/11 19:49 Page 69 REVIEW 69 >>FILM ORPHANS OF APOLLO Directed by Michael Potter www.orphansofapollo.com Review by Gwen Webber

Right: Gus What would space travel look like if Gardellini (left) the Russian Mir space station had and Rick been bought by rogue entrepreneurs Tumlinson, two of and kept in orbit for private the ‘Orphans’, explore a capsule enterprises to use? No doubt it would have accelerated today's feverish race Below: the familiar to develop space tourism and been a markings of the catalyst for other commercial Russian letter O enterprises. It would have also and the Anarchists' affected the Soviet-American signature A in the relationship, most likely for the poster point to the film's anti- worse. Director Michael Potter's debut American and documentary, Orphans of Apollo, anti-establishment suggests all of the above was a real overtoness prospect not long ago, when in 1999 a group of space enthusiasts and businessmen tried to buy the Mir. The film features interviews with the main protagonists of the project – a group of entrepreneurs, some of

whom refer to themselves as BORPHANSOFAPOLLO.COM 'anarcho-capitalists' – as well as NASA and former Mir administration, other disenchantment at America's post- forth a business plan to its director communist Russia have embraced space experts and enthusiasts. It Apollo efforts to re-launch man into Yuri Semenov that tapped into one capitalism in all its forms when it traces the events leading up to and space and build on the moon. When of Russia's proudest successes – the comes to space. after the failed attempt to take part the Nixon administration pulled the country’s frequent superiority over The lack of a narrative voice in ownership of the Mir space station to funds from the space programme, an the Americans in the Space Race. the film – to give a contextual prevent its impending decommission. underworld of self-initiated and 'The Mir represented all achievements setting to what’s going on – is The group, made up of members from privately-funded space organisations of our country's modern science and problematic and the result is that an alternative organisation The Space rallied around and set out to technology as well as international interesting questions are raised but Frontier Foundation was driven by continue space exploration, inspired ones,' says Semenov. The provocative left unanswered. For example, why is by the initial promise of 1969’s the American government so successful moon landing. 'As Apollo's concerned that everything put into children, we were now Apollo's TAKE SPACE OUT space is a potential weapon? The orphans, we'd been left out in the OF GOVERNMENT film's heavy focus on Anderson as a cold,' says Rick Tumlinson, space character – despite his absence from activist and entrepreneur. HANDS ‘AND GIVE IT the interviews – serves to further The members of the Space TO REAL PEOPLE FOR affect a conspiratorial tone when we Frontier Foundation enlisted wealthy discover right at the end that he is telecommunications businessman A REAL PROFIT’, appealing charges of fraud from his Walt Anderson, who believed that SAYS AUTHOR AND American prison cell. space should be the domain of the Space exploration is exciting private sector. Without needing much ROCKET INVESTOR because it attracts Utopian ideals and persuasion Anderson put $7m behind TOM CLANCY rewards pioneering spirit – albeit in the plan to part-privatise Mir. At the the long run. Had the orphans of the time, the USA was putting pressure nature of the Mir rescue proposal is Apollo space programme been on the economically crippled Russia a measure of ‘wild west’ American successful, it would have signalled to honour its agreement to help build culture at that time. the beginning of a democratic space the International Space Station. That The film allows little room to age. A decade later, it’s a new entailed Russia destroying Mir, misinterpret its implicit anti- generation that has taken up the despite the fact that the newest parts American and anti-establishment gauntlet. Robert Bigelow's efforts to of its modular structure (core parts overtones. To take space out of the use inflatable structures as a space had been put in space in 1986) were hands of a government agency 'and station (see page 22) and others' only a few years old. give it to real people for a real profit', ongoing work to develop a space The team approached Russian as author and Rotary Rocket investor elevator are ideas that stem from a agency RSC Inergia, which had been Tom Clancy says, smacks of a movement lead by dreamers whose responsible for running Mir, as well as revolution in the way space is seen. ventures were apparent failures. for launching Sputnik, the world's The film expounds the notion that Indeed the film's appeal is the first satellite, in 1957 and making America, in its role as the premier ambition of its main characters. As Dr Yuri Gagarin the first man in space, in capitalist on Earth, is playing at Peter Diamandis, X-Prize founder says, 1961 (the first woman, Valentina being the socialists of space. 'the day before something is a Tereshkova, followed in 1963). It set Meanwhile, the former Soviets of breakthrough, it's a crazy idea'.

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71 >>EXHIBITION MŒBIUS-TRANSE- FORME MŒBIUS PRODUCTION MŒBIUS 12 October - 13 March 2011 Fondation Cartier, Paris Review by Guy Bird

Right: an The French artist known as Mœbius illustration from may not be globally familiar to many the story of Arzach, outside of the world of comic strip art, first published in but anyone with an interest in science the cult French fiction film will know his work. The adult comic Métal Hurlant tentacled diva in Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element, the underwater Guy Bird creatures for James Cameron’s The is a freelance writer Abyss, plus costumes for Tron and on design, art, cars Alien have all come from the and music who imagination of Mœbius, the nom de helped establish the global street plume of Jean Giraud. Now in his early magazine seventies, Mœbius’ five-decade career Graphotism in the is the subject of a major exhibition at 1990s and now the Cartier Fondation in Paris. writes for its sister The gallery is already known for title, My Name is? pushing boundaries within contemporary art, recently showing paintings by filmmaker David Lynch as well as an exhibition on the history of graffiti (Born in the Streets). It’s an approach that curator Leanne Sacramone is passionate about: ‘We always try to go off the beaten path of what other institutions would do. To my knowledge I don’t think a comic book artist has ever been given a solo show in a major art institution.’ More than 400 artworks are on display in the Jean Nouvel-designed building, which attest not only to the artist’s amazing draughtsmanship but also his originality in subject matter and method. Indeed Giraud’s work on major sci-fi films only came through filmmakers’ awareness of his comic

HE BROUGHT GROWN- mysterious extraterrestrial warrior who emphasis within jazz music. He work. Here the work is hung vertically travelled across a planet on a half- realised the possibility of – some blown-up large – and the UP THEMES TO COMIC mechanical, half-organic bird that he transcending the everyday through addition of a group of podiums of BOOKS. THERE ARE had to repair every once in a while. ‘It mental and physical transformation. different heights in the central floor was aimed at an older audience,’ In deference to Giraud’s unusual space with up-lit Ektachrome slides of DREAMS WITHIN explains Sacramone, ‘but just about approach, the exhibition is largely more artwork on top – like mysterious DREAMS, PLAYS ON anyone can look at it and enjoy it. You based around themes and characters stalagmites – gives the whole room a don’t know anything about the rather than a strict chronology – cave-like air. Here are also pages from WORDS AND MORE character. You have to invent which can be confusing at first to the notebooks featuring previously everything yourself. It was unlike non-aficionado. The ground floor unpublished artworks for the fans strips first. As Sacramone points out: anything in contemporary science features horizontally laid-out display and a slightly self-indulgent, semi- ‘All comic strip artists do storyboards, fiction at the time.’ cases of original artwork from his documentary of the artist – again, which is very close to filmmaking, but Despite his numerous visions of best-loved characters – Blueberry, probably best left to the die-hards. For what’s different about Mœbius is his mind-altering situations, Giraud is Major Grubert and more – that snake others, though, there is another space incredible imagination, the drawing not, as has sometimes been lazily around the airy open-plan space as a upstairs that presents a brief but technique and the non-linear, non- assumed, into mind-altering drugs. moebius strip in respect of his exhilarating 3D animated film (the narrative structure of many of his Sacramone says the artist only tried nickname, which he originally coined artist’s first) that was made comic strips. In the context of the hallucinogenic mushrooms once and to reflect his dual identities (as he exclusively for the exhibition. 1960s and 70s he really brought didn’t really like the experience, and also penned many classic comics under There are special events for grown-up themes to comic books. gave up smoking marijuana about 15 the name ‘Gir’, short for Giraud). children – despite adult themes, Some you have to read a few times, years ago. Instead, several defining Aside from a few animated the work is not too scary or sexual – there are dreams within dreams, plays visits to Mexico – once as a teenager sections on monitors (which are hard and more new artworks will be on words and more.’ in the 1950s for eight months when he to see at sunny times because of hung before the exhibition closes. All A particular breakthrough for followed his mother and her new reflection in the glass) it’s an effective of it plays on the idea of Mœbius was Arzach, which first partner out there and then again in approach that’s assisted by six transformation central to Mœbius’ featured in the magazine Métal the 60s – would shape his whole speakers above the different sections work, the overall result feels like a Hurlant between 1975 and 1976 as career. Those trips opened his eyes to with recordings of the artist fittingly respectful way to show an art five short stories made up of 35 colour native tribal culture, shamanism, a commenting in French on the artwork. form that many love but the wider panels. Arzach had neither words or a very different desert-dominated Downstairs is much darker and mainstream art world has rarely – if conventional narrative and followed a landscape and the improvisational includes the artist’s metamorphic ever – taken seriously.

BLUEPRINT MARCH 2011 0 2rv we:0 0rv/is/a21/1/1112:52Page86 70/rev3/ki/sd/ta ef:B08 hw rev3 72 B03 BLUEPRINT 72 work unit habitation and media-centric design for amobile Below: amodular envelope an air-supported enclosed within compact coreis The Mediatech’s competition. mobile unit entry for API’s an Above right: MARCH 2011 >> DAVID GARCIA STUDIO (DAVID GARCIA AND ALANNA BAUDINET) BOOK regions’. One of itsmain objectivesis ecological significance of the polar attention tothe global,cultural, and cultural organisation to‘direct (API) wassetupasanon-profit of lifesuitabletoitsenvirons. acute misconceptions aboutthe way of the North, there remain today, turns towards the untapped resources spiritual beliefs. As more attention and anaesthetic deeply tied totheir own tradition of building strategies the native inhabitants, who havetheir disregarded the nomadic lifestyleof the worldinevitably istothe Arctic) by ‘southerners’ (aseveryone elsein townships inthe circumpolar regions establishment of Western-style researchers who workthere. The structures for the scientists and inhabitants orthe more temporary permanent dwellings for the native for architects, beitindesigning more one of the most demanding challenges The severe climate of the Arctic poses Review by Natre Wannathepsakul Hatje Cantz,£17.99 Andreas Müller(ed.) No.1: Architecture Arctic Perspective Cahier The Arctic Perspective Initiative detailed analyses of the Arctic’s and are highly enjoyable. More informative without being abstruse fieldwork journal are writtentobe quibbles, asthe essaysand API’s publication. Butthese are minor journey issuperfluous tothe historical bac 1818 voyage, whileproviding a architecture. The inclusion of the history of the development of mobile culture and environment, and the general background of the Arctic’s this wayone isprovided withthe Part 2and leavePart 1until last.In puzzling and readers should startwith API ontheir expedition in2009. day-to-day report bymembers of the explorer John Ross. The second isa undertaken in1818bythe British existence of anorth-west passage voyage todiscoverthe possible inventory and instructions for a the firstadetailed listof the accounts twojourneys into the Arctic: works of the architect RalphErskine. reassessment of the architectural influence of Buckminster Fuller;and a particular emphasisonthe worksand by ‘southern’ architects, with investigation into mobile structures shelters of the indigenous people;the essays describing the traditional unit’. The second partcomprises media-centric habitation and work API’s opencompetition for a‘mobile parts: the firstisadocumentation of architecture, itisdivided into three planned publications. Focusing on Architecture isthe firstof API’sfour principally Inuit population. inhabited area inthe world, witha the northernmost permanently Canadian Arctic region and isone of Nunavut, which coversmost of the regions. The inquirycentres on network for useinthe circumpolar mobile habitatand communication the development of amodel for a The layoutof Cahier No.1 is Arctic Perspective Cahier No.1: The third partof the book kdrop toAPI’slatterday the large traditional tents go upin sleep […]alwaysamazed athow fast that havelittlemore thanrooms to canvas, compared toour nylon domes ones: ‘Theirs are roomy, dry, and warm traditional tents totheir owndome API crew realise the superiority of old. Thisisdemonstrated when the patronising colonialist attitudes of observer and imitatorrather thanthe API’s approach tends towards thatof advantages of modern technologies, cultures. Without denying the environment, itspeopleand their respectful engagement withthe Arctic argument for aninformed, fair and promised infuture volumes. build inthishostile condition is technological perspectiveonhow to geopolitics and ideologies and the THE MOONANDMARS WAY WETALK ABOUT SIMILARITY TO THE BEARS UNCANNY CIRCUMPOLAR REGION NORTHERN PROMOTING THE What thisbookpromotes isthe would define it. without sentient life forms aswe these extraterrestrial bodies are be alessonworthrevisiting evenif the Arctic and itsconsequences may them may engender. The conquestof implications thatourcontact with existing natural systems and the careful study and analysis of their should not blind ustothe need for a human lifeinthese environments a form of shelter thatcouldsustain Similarly, the challenge toconfigure about the moon and Mars today. uncanny similaritytothe waywetalk and ripefor inhabitation bearsan an area replete innatural resources the northern circumpolar region as in the 1960sand 1970s inpromoting since the 1930s. been carried outbythe government of the indigenous population thathad forced integration and relocation with the exploitative programme of unwittingly orotherwise –colluded was situated. context withinwhich Erskine’s design problematic isthe social and political built. ButwhatMcGowan finds Erskine’s reputation, itwasnever the sun.Although itcemented and opened onthe southern side to shielding against the northern winds building thatactsasaperimeter wall, enclosed withinalong coiling brightly coloured boxes onstilts, community housed inaclusterof project inNunavut shows aUtopian drawn image for the ResoluteBay or rather, hisowndrawings. The hand- Erskine wastaken athisownwords, Design’s uncritical profile of 1977. particularly through Architectural humanitarian concern of hiswork, architectural establishment for the buildings, he wastoutedbythe architect of modern Arctic indigenous Ralph Erskine. McGowan onthe Swedish architect the essaybyJérémie Michael implication of colonisation comes in a naïve attitude towards the comparison toourdome tents.’ The rhetoric Erskine employed Erskine’s Canadian Arctic project – Described asthe exemplary The most pointed illustration of

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74 ECOBUILD PREVIEW W blueprintmagazine.co.uk

<< ARMOURCOAT stand S554 Armourcoat announce the addition of Ductal to their world-renowned product range at Ecobuild. Developed by Lafarge, Company Name Ductal Ultra-High Performance Concrete Address and Postcode (UHPC) presents a genuine revolution in 0???? ?????? the concrete sector. The material www.website Forbo Flooring Systems possesses a unique combination of Forbo Flooring UK Ltd superior properties including strength, PO Box 1 ductility, durability and enhanced Kirkcaldy KY1 2SB aesthetics. This enables designers to << ? 0800 731 2369 develop and realize new sculptural www.forbo-flooring.co.uk approaches to concrete forms. Ductal is ??? << ideally suited to the manufacture of FORBO stand 151 lightweight decorative building façades. At this year’s Ecobuild, visitors to the Forbo Flooring Systems stand, no 151, will take It can be cast in large thin panels with an interactive journey through the company's impressive environmental initiatives and an outstanding level of surface finish achievements across its portfolio of linoleum, project vinyl, carpet tile, flocked flooring Armourcoat Ltd detail, and has a strength and durability and entrance matting system solutions. Centre stage will be Marmoleum, Forbo’s Morewood Close greater than natural stone. Ductal can be sustainable and biodegradable linoleum. Made from 97% natural raw materials, more London Road pigmented to a wide range of colours and than 37% of which have been recycled, Marmoleum has more independently awarded Sevenoaks due to the very fine particle size, it will eco-labels than any other flooring product in the world, making it the environmental Kent TN13 2HU allow excellent replication of fine surface product of choice for many flooring specifiers. Already available in an extensive choice 01732 467994 detail and texture from the mould. of colourways and patterns, Forbo will be launching a new Marmoleum ‘Special Edition’ www.ductal.armourcoat.com collection at the exhibition – ‘The unexpected nature of linoleum’.

>> ROCA stand S555 Roca, the leading global bathroom brand, will be exhibiting at Ecobuild 2011, the world’s largest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment. Showcasing its comprehensive range of design led, ecologically sound products, Roca will be present on Stand S555. Ecobuild provides Roca with the perfect Milliken Contract platform from which to present its latest eco 01942 612888 design credentials and brand initiatives. One www.millikencontract.co.uk of the key designs on the Roca stand will be << W+W (shown right), Roca’s innovative all-in- MILLIKEN CONTRACT stand S350 one WC and washbasin designed to Milliken Contract will be at March’s Ecobuild event, presenting recently launched carbon maximize space and conserve water. This neutral certified ranges that provide sustainable carpet tiles across a broad spectrum of ground breaking idea, incorporating Roca’s Roca Limited public and commercial locations. Situated on Stand S350, Milliken Contract will showcase new ‘water-reuse’ technology, uses waste Samson Road its Formwork, Fixation, Shadowbox, Scattergraph and Paste Up collections, along with a water from the basin to fill the WC cistern, Hermitage Industrial Estate new brochure highlighting the company’s innovative approach to sustainability that has thereby reducing water usage by up to Coalville seen it considered as one of the most progressive carpet tile manufacturers. The Southern 25% compared to a standard 6/3 litre Leics. LE67 3FP Analogue collection, using Aquafil Econyl 95% recycled content yarn will also be dual-flush WC. 01530 830080 available for view for the first time at Ecobuild. www.roca.com

>> ?KERAKOLL stand S360 ???Kerakoll has just launched an improved latex additive for use with the H40 adhesive range, with the added convenience that it is a one bag one bucket solution making it extremely easy to use. The new product which increases thixitropicity and grab does not contain aldehydes which are known to cause cancer, and the combination of cement adhesive and flexible additive is the first to Strata Tiles reach the EC1 standard, which is concerned 0800 012 1454 with the level of emissions of volatile www.stratatiles.co.uk organic compounds given off by flooring. In << STRATA TILES stand S760 addition it is lighter in colour so that it does not affect the colour of the adhesive and is Visit stand s760 at EcoBuild and see Strata Tiles demonstrate our exclusive range of pleasant to use due to the low level of tiles that not only kills bacteria, removes dirt without abrasive cleaning or chemicals, odour. The facts that it doesn’t change the Company Name but incredibly, can clean the air we breathe. To be exact, 1000 sqm of our tiles consistency of the adhesive making it nicer Address and Postcode provides the equivalent oxygen to 70 deciduous trees, making this an EcoBuild must to trowel, and that it has a longer pot life Kerakoll0???? ?????? see as the most durable, maintenance and eco friendly collection of products on than previously without affecting the setting 01527 www.website578000 display. Bring your diaries too as you’ll be able to book a CPD visit where we come to time of the adhesive, also mean that it is a www.kerakoll.co.uk your office with samples, a CPD and demonstration… we’ll even supply lunch. great product to work with.

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76 ECOBUILD & SURFACE DESIGN SHOW PREVIEWS W blueprintmagazine.co.uk

C.R. Laurence of Europe CaesarStone Charles Babbage Avenue Charles Babbage Avenue Kingsway Business Park Kingsway Business Park Rochdale OL16 4NW Rochdale OL16 4NW 00800 0421 6144 00800 0421 6144 www.crlaurence.co.uk www.caesarstone.uk.com << C.R. LAURENCE Ecobuild stand N710 << CAESARSTONE Ecobuild stand N710 C.R. Laurence will be exhibiting their range of glass hardware and accessories at CaesarStone, synonymous with style and durability, has created their ‘Get Thinner’ Ecobuild, on Stand N710. The show will take place from 1st to 3rd March 2011 at ExCel, 13mm designer collection, to compliment the existing 20mm and 30mm thick range. London, where visitors can view a selection of CRL’s extensive product range – from The new range will be showcased at Ecobuild on Stand N710. CaesarStone will also be their revolutionary Taper-Loc System to Shower Door Hardware to Laguna Sliding Door exhibiting their full and exclusive colour range. The new selection includes ‘Dusty Systems. The Taper-Loc System is a revolutionary new frameless glass balustrade system Stones,’ ‘Black Rocks,’ ‘Buttermilk,’ Organic White,’ and ‘Pure White,’ the definitive white. for fixing toughened or toughened laminated glass from 12mm - 25.52 mm thick. There Five beautiful new colours introduced to compliment the existing range. CaesarStone is is no need for cement, therefore eliminating mess, and the precision measured control an engineered quartz-based surface with low maintenance properties that provide an gives you high quality installations every time. The system is tested to meet the ease of living that will look great for years to come. strictest building code requirements BS6180:1999 and BS6399-1:1996.

>> NCS COLOUR << CORIAN Surface Ecobuild stand EPP6 Design Show stand 308 NCS Navigator, the new online Corian distributors CDUK Ltd are colour design application based increasingly supplying this wondrous and on the Natural Colour System. flexible material for architectual Easy to use, with free download applications and at the Surface Design via our website. Find specific NCS Show (stand 308) they will be showing colours, develop colourways, and it’s full range of capabilities. A model of cross reference between NCS, RGB the breathtaking Seeko Hotel in Bordeaux and CMYK. Or simply explore the will take centre stage. The playful facade NCS System as 3D colour space. of convex and concave forms, all in All 1,950 NCS colours are Corian has made the building an iconic available from major paint and landmark. King Kong Architecture chose coatings companies and NCS Colour Centre Corian to create fabulous contoured referenced in flooring, laminates, 71 Ancastle Green exterior cladding using vast panels but ceramic tiles, glass, cladding, and Henley on Thames without seeing any joints. Corian’s much more. You can check the Oxfordshire RG9 1TS resistance to moisture, heat and UV-rays CDUK Ltd physical colours with the NCS 01491 411717 makes it as suitable for outdoors as for 0113 201 2240 Index, Atlas or individual colour www.ncscolour.co.uk indoors. What’s more, the building will www.cdukltd.co.uk sheets. See us on Stand EPP6 at never need painting and will stay looking Ecobuild. pristine for years to come.

>> ANTRON Surface Design Show stand 302 Attendees to this year’s show will be able to discover some of the latest developments from Antron carpet fibre that has teamed up with SCIN to Mykon explore the theme of ‘colour in 5 Stukeley Business Centre materials’. Surfaces and materials Blackstone Road specialist SCIN will showcase companies Huntingdon that have proven track records as Cambridgeshire PE29 6EF innovators within their field and Antron 01480 415070 carpet fibre is delighted to once again www.mykon.com have been invited to take part. << Showcasing Antron Lumena and Antron MYKON Surface Design Show stand 212 Legacy yarns, as well as Antron Lumena Invista Antron carpet fibre Create striking designs with light, using Mykons flooring, ceiling tiles, internal hinged carpet fibre with TruBlend fibre Ermin Street doors, sliding doors, panels and bespoke furniture. Mykon create beautiful modern technology, Antron carpet fibre will Brockworth transparent or opaque panels to order for contemporary homes and commercial settings, present its 2011 Design Tool Kit and will Gloucester, GL3 4HP using a unique aluminium honeycomb core sandwiched between toughened glass or reveal elements of its Carpet and Space 0845 450 6434 polycarbonate. For inspiration and case studies please visit www.mykon.com. campaign that explores how a [email protected] floorcovering can help to define a space.

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78 PRODUCTS To place products contact: Sophia Sahin T +44 (0)20 7936 6856 F +44 (0)20 7936 6813 E [email protected] W blueprintmagazine.co.uk

<< KÄHRS Kährs has launched its new World Collection, which provides an eco- friendly alternative to a tropical wood floor. The new sustainable oak floors are available in 1, 2 and 3-strip designs and have an authentic ‘exotic’ stained finish in a choice of copper/red wine and rich burnt orange/topaz tones. The launch follows Kährs removal of all tropical species from its range, until guaranteed controlled sources can be found. Collection styles include red toned 1- Milliken Contract strip Cayenne, 2-strip Chili and 3-strip 01942 612888 Habanero and topaz toned 1-strip www.millikencontract.co.uk Coriander, 2-strip Nutmeg and 3-strip << MILLIKEN CONTRACT Kährs (UK) Ltd Cardamom. Each design features Kährs Unit A4 Cairo Place glueless Woodloc® joint for fast, easy The latest modular carpet from Milliken Contract takes its colour cues from nature Endeavour Business Park installation and a durable lacquer forging striking colour combinations influenced by stormy skies and the intensity of 7 Penner Road prefinish for easy care. All floors within light as it breaks through the clouds in a dazzling three-dimensional product. As one Havant the new World Collection feature the half of the newly created Out of the Shadows collection, Scattergraph is created Hampshire PO9 1QN award-winning, eco-friendly construction through Milliken Contract’s ConvergenceTM technology, the Tufted Textured Loop Pile is 023 9245 3045 patented by Kährs in 1941. married with proprietary digital colour placement to create organic texture on the www.kahrs.co.uk. floorplane, complementing the more structured Shadowbox in a palette of 14 shades.

>> ARTWOOD For designers looking to complement heritage inspired interiors, Artwood’s Design Paint collection of wood flooring offers a different and unusual twist on the theme. With the Design Paint collection, Artwood offers hand-finished wood flooring in any Farrow&Ball floor paint finish, including beautiful tones such as Mouse’s Back, Eating Room Red and Tanner’s Brown. Each colour within the Design Paint collection is applied by hand and sealed to provide a durable and long lasting painted Maine finish presented on high quality engineered 01908 271688 oak flooring. Artwood Design Paint is www.maine.co.uk available in both 14mm floating and 22m Artwood Floors << structural versions and is backed by a Acton Lane MAINE comprehensive warranty and a full range of Park Royal Maine recently installed their Mainestream range of drawers and tambour units in a bespoke accessories. London NW10 7NB Financial Institution in London. Also specified were Maineseries31 lockers, pedestals 0845 519 2726 and bookcases. Mainestream is a modular range of storage units, which allow www.artwood-floors.com streamlined heights and widths across all Maine storage ranges.

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<< THE INTERIORS GROUP The Interiors Group have completed a 24,000 sq ft refurbishment of the first and ground floors at 89 Albert Embankment, London, for the charity who run both Comic Relief and Sports Relief. Comic Relief, which many of us associate with both the Red Nose Day campaign and Sports Relief, use the money raised Samuel Heath & Sons from these events towards helping Leopold Street poverty stricken people all over the world. Birmingham B12 0UJ The brief given to The Interiors Group and 0121 766 4216 Jump Studios by Comic Relief, was to www.samuel-heath.com produce a simple design on a tight << SAMUEL HEATH budget. A central hub has been created by, The Interiors Group, by building a new Perko Powermatic® concealed door closers have been used as part of the £220 million staircase to link the two floors together. refurbishment of The Savoy, London, one of the world’s most iconic hotels. The Interiors Group This relocation entailed reorganising how The capital city’s largest ever hotel restoration project has involved the rebuilding or 020 7495 1885 people worked together and has created a redesign of all guestrooms and public areas, the introduction of an entirely new services www.interiorsgroup.co.uk better flow of communication and team infrastructure and the structural stabilisation of the hotel’s listed riverfront façade atmosphere. As always, The Interiors World-renowned hotel architects, ReardonSmith led the design team for this prestigious Group have carried out work at Comic project, developing and implementing interior design schemes created by Pierre-Yves Relief with pure consistency according to Rochon, which heighten the level of glamour and sense of luxury for which The Savoy is the brief that they were given. famed across the globe.

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82 MAN AND MACHINE ONDREJ DOULE Mars Base 10 is a plan for a permanent settlement on Mars designed by Czech architect Ondrej Doule. The project was developed by Doule when he was an intern at the NASA Ames facility in California and completed at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France, where Doule now works as a researcher. Split over three floors, the design includes sleeping quarters, bathrooms, laboratories, gyms, a kitchen and a bar distributed radially from the base. The upper floor houses a control room and briefing centre that will offer panoramic views of the Martian surface. The inflatable structure assembles itself after landing and is powered by solar panels and a nuclear reactor. Greenhouses and biospheres will provide food and process waste as well as recycling water for missions that are expected to last one-and-a-half years. www.isunet.edu

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