Performance-driven design methodology for habitation shell design in extreme conditions on Mars

Abstract

The research project illustrates how performance-driven design tools can be conducted as an architectural design methodology that suggests an innovative approach to design a habitation shell in extreme environmental conditions without human assistance. This research study attempts to use environmental data revealed by NASA and its habitat design requirements to develop a conceptual design for an innovative habitation form and then simulate it with Mars conditions to analyze the habitation shell’s structural behavior according to finite element analysis. In this regard, research phases, including layout configuration, form-finding, and structural analysis, have been conducted to explore a habitation concept implemented with generative design tools as a decision-maker in extreme conditions. In conclusion, two generated typologies of proposed habitation forms will be compared in terms of their structural performance under extreme loads of the martian environment. Within this research project, due to the numerous extreme challenges of design and construction of habitation in extreme conditions using conventional approaches, a performance-driven design methodology will provide a rational and sustainable design methodology to tackle extreme barriers to Mars’s environment.

Key words： Performance-driven shell design; Finite element model; In-situ material; Extreme conditions; Mars habitation