Innovation in Deep Space Habitat Interior Design: Lessons Learned from Small Space Design in Terrestrial Architecture

Abstract

Increased public awareness of carbon footprints, crowding in urban areas, and rising housing costs have spawned a 'small house movement' in the housing industry. Members of this movement desire small, yet highly functional residences which are both affordable and sensitive to consumer comfort standards. In order to create comfortable, minimum-volume interiors, recent advances have been made in furniture design and approaches to interior layout that improve both space utilization and encourage multi-functional design for small homes, apartments, naval, and recreational vehicles. Design efforts in this evolving niche of terrestrial architecture can provide useful insights leading to innovation and efficiency in the design of space habitats for future human space exploration missions. This paper highlights many of the cross-cutting architectural solutions used in small space design which are applicable to the spacecraft interior design problem. Specific solutions discussed include reconfigurable, multipurpose spaces; collapsible or transformable furniture; multipurpose accommodations; efficient, space saving appliances; stowable and mobile workstations; and the miniaturization of electronics and computing hardware. For each of these design features, descriptions of how they save interior volume or mitigate other small space issues such as confinement stress or crowding are discussed. Finally, recommendations are provided to provide guidance for future designs and identify potential collaborations with the small spaces design community.

Designing With Emotional Awareness

“…The modulation of the intensity of lighting and color can be used as strategies to improve the psychophysiological wellbeing of individuals within the environment, in the form of healthy lighting (Tomassoni et al, 2015). Hence the importance of Light Design and Light Art, and of an ecological and psychological approach to lighting in the living environment (Simon and Toups, 2014). One of the fundamental and more complicated aspects is that of understanding the effects that shapes have on human behavior and perception.…”