Designing for Space

The aim of this paper is underline why the designer must really become a central figure in space research programs that involve human presence focussing the attention on the importance of theoretical and methodological approach “half way between design and human sciences”. Because of the rapid expansion of manned missions in space exploration and, especially, for the gradual increase in the duration of the time humans are spending onboard the International Space Station, the relative studies into the habitability of confined spaces and in microgravity have also multiplied, to guarantee, now and in the near future when we are thinking of mission to Mars, a more comfortable and functional, and therefore more efficient, way of living and working in space. Designing for space means starting anew, applying a different logic for a different environment, conceiving new instruments for uses and activities that Earth dwellers have difficulty in envisaging, but which on the whole presuppose a different relationship between our bodies, the objects, and the surrounding space. The objectives that will be explained in this pages try to demonstrate as design research for confined environments and microgravity conditions requires a capacity of “use forecast”, that is to say foreseeing the way in which an object will be used, to be able to imagine, for example, the actions and the movements of the crewmembers in relationship to the “neutral posture” that is assumed in microgravity, and to foresee the physiological, perceptive, ergonomic, psychological and motional requirements that will arise in the astronauts in conditions that are completely new and unknown to the human being. The conclusions of the reflections discussed in the paper, related of the particular space context, delineate the task of the architecture and industrial design to improve the quality of life on board, planning on board environments that can facilitate human movement and, at the same time, foresee new ways of using instruments and new gestures in relationship to the extraordinary conditions of the space environment. The paper will be explained through the case studies developed by the research laboratory for space design “SpaceLab” at the Design Faculty of the Politecnico di Milano.