2050 – Living on Mars: Children design future Habitats
- Paper ID
8107
- author
- company
Vienna University of Technology;
- country
Austria
- year
2010
- abstract
Children aged between 7 – 12 years have expressed their vision of future living on other planets. The workshop was held in July, at the University of Technology in Vienna and hosted children students from Austria as well as from neighboring countries. Experts were invited to impart knowledge on selected scientific topics in form of input-lectures as well as in 1:1 dialogues with the children during the workshop. The overall topic of the workshop was to design a habitat on planet Mars. The children were free to decide the habitat type, usage and size but were given two focus points. They were motivated to imagine how to live and work together within a confined and restricted habitat and think of a ‘house’ as a closed-loop-system in terms of supply and return. Supported by the experts and experienced astronaut trainers the 30 young astronauts transformed their visions into reality in the form of big-scale models and drawings. This paper introduces the workshop concept and participants, presents the work produced at the workshop and gives a review of the children’s main ideas in contrast to contemporary habitat design.