Jonathan Morrison Argues Architects Must Set Extraterrestrial Design Standards Before Lunar Settlements Arrive

Writing for Dezeen, London-based architecture journalist Jonathan Morrison contends that the design of off-world habitats is no longer speculative, with the first commercial space station, Haven-1, scheduled for launch next year and Axiom following a few months later. NASA plans to return to the moon in 2028 to begin a semi-permanent base, a nuclear reactor is expected by the end of the decade, and the International Space Station retires in 2030, by which point dozens of private stations should be available. Elon Musk's stated ambition is a Martian city of a million people by the 2050s. Firms including Foster + Partners, BIG and SOM have already turned to extraterrestrial work, and Morrison argues the practical questions of daily life now matter more than spectacle. A window in space is costly and a potential failure point, yet Earth-gazing is prized for morale aboard the ISS, raising the question of who gets the two windows in a six-bedroom lunar settlement. He cites Fordlandia, Henry Ford's 1920s Amazon rubber settlement, and the East India Company as precedents for corporate control hardening into governance, warning that a Martian habitat where one company supplies employment, oxygen, water and return tickets would make inequality physical. Circadian lighting, vegetation, privacy and places for ritual should not be value-engineered away, he writes, calling on architects to agree design standards now.