“How do you think we should live on Mars?” That’s the (very open-ended) question that was recently posed to more than 200 people in England. The answer has just landed in a public square in Bristol, UK—and it’s a two-story, solar-powered dwelling with a kitchenette, a hydroponic garden, and a “Martian toilet.”
The Martian House was conceived of by artists Ella Good and Nicki Kent, who wanted to use Mars as a lens to focus on what we really need and how we want to live on Earth. It was designed by two British architecture and design firms: Pearce+ and Hugh Broughton Architects, which has designed a number of science research stations in Antarctica. The architects consulted with space scientists about the climate conditions on Mars and how those should translate into their design.
They also ran a series of workshops in Bristol, where members of the public could dream up their ideal home features in space, like an open kitchen, or a view of the Martian landscape. The most common request, however, was living plants. “They’re a living thing—they need to be tended and looked after, and you can eat them,” says Hugh Broughton Architects’ director, Hugh Broughton. “But it’s as much the caring as anything else, which is very therapeutic, especially in an alien environment.” (At the U.S. South Pole Station in Antarctica, Broughton says researchers can book a half-hour slot to just sit in the hydroponic garden, tend the plants, or even read a book in the warmth.)
On Mars, the walls within would be filled with Martian regolith, a silt-like volcanic rock that’s readily available on the planet. The Bristol version, however is filled with air. Meanwhile, the ground floor houses compact bedroom pods and a Duravit toilet with a heated seat, illuminated bowl, and an odor extraction mechanism because you can’t just open the window on a planet with so little oxygen. On Mars, this half of the house would be built underground, within Mars’s empty lava tubes. In Bristol, it sits in a boarded-up shipping container.