Moon Habitat: How Do You Make the Moon Feel Like Home?

02 — STUDIO STORIES

This Studio Story explores Moon Habitat design from a deeply human perspective: not only how we might survive on the Moon, but how light, privacy, rest and atmosphere could make an extreme environment feel like home.

In May I was invited to join an international team at ESA’s technical centre ESTEC in Noordwijk.

Around the table were space engineers, space biologists, a space ergonomist and specialists in robotics and human factors.

AND THEN THERE WAS ME

An interior architect who had no clue what half of them were talking about.

Perhaps, maybe that was exactly why I had been invited: to bring a fresh creative perspective and gently shake up the minds of the nerds.

PHASE II

One of many lectures. My brain was working overtime.

A full day of lectures followed. Engineering. Biology. Robotics. Ergonomics. Human factors. I tried to understand subjects for which I clearly did not possess the required brain cells.

I almost never have headaches. That evening, I did.

So. Much. Regolith.

Since I wasn’t going to grow the brain cells of a space engineer overnight,

I had to trust what I did have: brainstorm talent.

My feeling told me that every specialist possessed an essential part of the answer — but first, they had to be tempted out of their individual bubbles.

So I turned the process into a game.

Each team member received a different colour and small pieces of tracing paper.

One rule: draw, don’t write.

We combined the transparent sketches in unexpected sets, almost like a visual game of quartets. The colours revealed where each idea began; the overlapping lines showed where it might go next.

My solution i guess was an attempt to start layering the nerds or maybe my attempt to understand the information.

THE RESULT

Out of all those coloured layers and wildly different brains, a habitat began to emerge.

We called it The Nest: a compact, rigid core containing the systems essential for survival, surrounded by inflatable modules that could gradually expand the living and working space.

Clean and dirty zones kept lunar dust away from daily life, while regolith helped protect the structure from radiation.

There it was again. So much regolith.

CREATING ATMOSPHERE

Finally, something I understood.

We split into smaller teams. I was asked to explore how we could create atmosphere.

A lunar habitat might contain everything required to keep a human body alive — but that does not automatically make it a place where someone can truly live.

I began sketching spaces for working, resting and withdrawing: a hammock, a private relaxation zone and LED windows that could imitate daylight.

Very scientifically

Trying to understand lunar gravity.

The seriousness of the subject never cancelled the wonder of being there — or the need to play inside it.

They filled my head with data. But they also changed my view of the moon forever.

That evening, I sat on the balcony with my lover, a glass of ouzo and a spectacular headache.

After a day of trying to comprehend how humans might live on the Moon,

I looked up at it differently.

The Moon was no longer a distant, silent object. It had become a landscape filled with systems, dust, possibilities — and people trying to imagine a home.

Moon Habitat — Future Settlement Design

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