Week 2 -- INDEX Award Design Review

Week 2 Prompt -- Choose one INDEX award winner or nominee and review their profile and design. Write a comment about the design or invention.

The LUNARK design by SAGA Space Architects is particularly interesting to me; the designers took on the issue of housing for future space settlements and built a potential living quarters for people who venture into space. The design is based off of the way origami folds, and it expands in volume by 750% when it is unfolded. They designed it this way so that it is small during travel, because all the space counts when in a rocket ship. They also considered the distress astronauts can feel due to the darkness of space, and they included lights on the inside that change based on the astronaut's circadian rhythm. The most interesting part of the design to me is that two of the lead designers tested their product out in the arctic for 61 days, as part of a larger research mission testing circadian rhythms, social dynamics, and more of people traveling to space. Overall, this design feels very futuristic and although not very practical for the vast majority of people, it is interesting to see how designers are tackling the question of space travel.