Image Courtesy of KieranTimberlake

KieranTimberlake使用虚拟现实技术为将来在火星生活设计住所
KieranTimberlake is Using Virtual Reality to Design a Home for Future Life on Mars

由专筑网张敏，韩平编译

本文最初由Autodesk的Redshift出版，题为“火星生活是怎样的？建筑师用虚拟现实(VR)引领火星设计的道路。”

如果一家建筑公司足够幸运，它可以在一个项目上一石二鸟。例如，一个项目可以同时被称为历史保护项目和节能环保项目。但是，位于费城的建筑设计公司KieranTimberlake的一个团队正在通过其公共无偿项目“火星城市设施行动挑战”来实现四项雄心勃勃的目标。

建筑师FátimaOlivieri，Efrie Friedlander和Rolando Lopez与国家建筑科学研究院（NIBS），美国航空航天局和总体学习研究所（TLRI）合作，在火星上建立一个虚拟城市，希望可以通过这个虚拟城市获得多项研究成果。

Kerry Joels（TLRI总裁和前美国航空航天局物理学家）和KieranTimberlake的主要目标是缩小未来科技科学工程数学（STEM）等专业人员的技能差距，特别是在建筑和设施管理方面。另一个目标是将此项目作为对KieranTimberlake公司虚拟现实（VR）建构能力的测试。第三，Joels和建筑师通过此项目获得研究基金，用于在地球上建立一个像火星城市一样的太空阵地。第四，科学家和建筑师深入的研究和设计工作在未来的某一天会成为真实的火星基地的雏形。

This article was originally published by Autodesk's Redshift publication as "Life on Mars? Architects Lead the Way to Designing for Mars With Virtual Reality."
If an architecture firm is lucky, it can hit two birds with one stone on a single project—for example, prioritizing both historic preservation and energy efficiency. But a team at KieranTimberlake, based in Philadelphia, is aiming for four ambitious goals with its pro bono project, the Mars City Facility Ops Challenge.
Architects Fátima Olivieri, Efrie Friedlander, and Rolando Lopez teamed up with National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS), NASA, and the Total Learning Research Institute (TLRI) to create a virtual working city on Mars—one that might reap multiple rewards.
A primary goal for Kerry Joels (TLRI president and former NASA physicist) and KieranTimberlake was to bridge the skills gap for the future STEM workforce—particularly in architecture and facilities management. Another was to use the project as a test for VR creation within KieranTimberlake. Third, Joels and the architects hope to get funding to build a Mars City-like space camp on Earth. And fourth, their deep research and design efforts could one day inform plans for an actual Mars base.


Image Courtesy of KieranTimberlake

火星位于距离地球平均1.4亿英里的地方。尽管非常遥远，但并非遥不可及。因此，将火星变为人类居所的设想已经讨论了几十年。目前，它的气候对人类来说是恶劣的，不适于人类栖息的，但是岩石地形与地球是相似的，并且存在水的事实使得火星可变为人类居所的可能性大大提升。 Elon Musk作为一个杰出的思想者，大胆做出了人类将在下个世纪移居到火星的预测。

火星城市项目最早开始于二十世纪，由美国航空航天局提供经费，专门用于与火星相关的科学科技（STEM）方面的学习研究。通过这比研究经费，TLRI创建了一个名为“火星设备运行挑战”的项目，这是一个仪表盘式系统，学生团队共同努力解决火星上建筑物的机械问题。

当KieranTimberlake加入团队，他们将系统升级到接近现实的BIM模型（使用Autodesk Revit），其中包含光线和自然环境，机械系统，生活空间等。然后，他们加入了作为另外一个星球恶劣生活条件的考量。

“在火星基地，你必须产生自己生活所需的能量和自己的食物，因为没有别的，” Olivieri说。 “所以我们不得不考虑生产能量和食物所需的空间和相应的人类生活的方式。例如，你必须能够每天去除PV [太阳能]面板上的灰尘一次或两次，否则就没有可使用的能源。”

At an average of 140 million miles away from Earth, Mars is remote but still close enough that the prospect of colonizing it has been discussed for decades. Its climate is harsh and uninhabitable for humans, but the rocky terrain is familiar, and the known presence of water keeps colonization within the realm of possibility. Elon Musk is just one prominent thought leader who predicts the colonization of Mars within the next century.
The Mars City project began in the 2000s with a grant from NASA to create a STEM learning program around Mars. With that grant, TLRI created a project called the Mars Facility Ops Challenge, a dashboard-based system in which student groups worked together to resolve the mechanical issues of a building on Mars.
Once KieranTimberlake got on board, they upgraded the system to a fully realized BIM model (using Autodesk Revit) that incorporates light and nature, mechanical systems, living spaces, and more. Then they added considerations for building on the harsh living conditions of another planet.
“On a Mars base, you have to generate your own power and your own food because there’s nothing else,” Olivieri says. “So we had to account for these spaces and how humans have to live. For example, you have to be able to go outside to dust off the PV [solar] panels once or twice a day because otherwise, you won’t have power.”


Image Courtesy of KieranTimberlake

为了创造一个能够让100个人自给自足的栖息地，建筑师与Joels合作，仔细研究确定哪些材料和技术将在火星上发挥最大的作用，甚至细致到建筑的气泡形状。 “当我们使用的东西不太正确的时候Kerry就会指出” Friedlander说。“他会去的，‘实际上，这种形状是不正确的，因为空气压力的平衡，所以建筑不能有角，’然后我们回去重新做一个设计，消除了角。”

建筑师还设法推进基地，希望能够超越人们通常对于住在太空状态的想象。 通常，人们会想到像国际空间站那样有范围约束，与像管道一样的走廊相连，并且与外部环境几乎没有连接。同时通常是为了工作而不是生活或玩耍。相比之下，此次设计的火星城市强调公共和私人空间之间的平衡，并结合了地球上关于人们如何与建筑互动和使用空间的经验。

“原来的设计（在美国航空航天局授予研究基金之前创造的）是一个封闭的空间并且缺乏空间的定义，而我们希望它成为一个人们不会因为无限期生活在这里而陷入绝望的地方，” Lopez说。 “所以我们引进了各式各样的走廊，人们可以在空间的出入口处定位自己，并且也可以与景观相联系。”

该项目的关键是与Gilbane建筑公司，Travis Alderson Associates的机械设备工程师以及NIBS国际设施管理协会的合作。在他们的帮助下，KieranTimberlake能够有足够数据，将它们在地球上的表现移植到虚拟现实世界中。

火星城市目前是一个教育游戏，有1200多名中高中学生体验过（最近在2017年NIBS大会上）。 使用VR耳机，孩子们可以走过空间，回应不同的维护方案，并测试解决方案。

对于设计团队和学生来说，这是一个令人振奋的机会，可以看到这些设施和系统在火星上是如何失败的。 Olivieri说：“如果一扇门在地球上的一座建筑物坏掉了，这可能不是什么大不了的事情。” “但是如果在火星的压力环境中坏掉，那可能对整个社区是致命的。”

为了在VR体验中获得正确的图像，该团队使用了Autodesk Live，3ds Max和Stingray的组合，可以对虚拟世界的各个方面进行细化，例如地形的颜色和太空服的细节。确定材料需要了解材料科学的知识，并且需要具备预测未来几十年技术如何演变的能力。

To create a self-sustaining habitat for 100 people, the architects worked with Joels to determine which materials and technologies would work best on Mars, even down to the bubbly shape of the buildings. “Kerry was very clear on when we had gotten things not quite right,” Friedlander says. “He would go, ‘Actually, that shape isn’t right because with the way the air pressure needs to be maintained, you can’t have corners.’ Then we’d go back and do a redesign eliminating the corners.”
The architects also sought to advance the base beyond what people typically envision living in space would be like—such as the constrained confines of the International Space Station, with knob- and tube-filled corridors that have little connection to the outside environment and are geared more toward working rather than living or playing. Mars City, by contrast, emphasizes a balance between public and private spaces and incorporates architectural lessons learned on Earth about how people want to interact.
“The original design [created before the NASA grant] called for closed spaces without a lot of spatial definition, and we wanted to make it a place where people wouldn’t be depressed living in this bubble for an indefinite amount of time,” Lopez says. “So we introduced variation to the corridor so you would have openings in places where you could orient yourself and have a connection with the landscaping.”
Key to the project was the collaboration with the Gilbane Building Company and MEP engineers at Travis Alderson Associates, as well as input from the NIBS and the International Facilities Management Association. With their help, KieranTimberlake was able to include data on systems requirements based on how they perform on Earth and transplant that to the virtual world.
Mars City is currently an educational game that more than 1,200 middle- and high-school students have demoed (most recently at the 2017 NIBS conference). Using VR headsets, kids can walk through the space, respond to different maintenance scenarios, and test out solutions.
It’s a fascinating opportunity for both the design team and students to see how systems might fail on Mars. “If a door breaks in a building on Earth, it might not a big deal,” Olivieri says. “But if a door breaks in a pressurized environment on Mars, that can be lethal for the community.”
To get the imagery right in the VR experience, the team worked with a combination of Autodesk Live, 3ds Max, and Stingray, which allowed refinement of various aspects of the virtual world—such as the color of the terrain and details on the spacesuits. Determining materials required an understanding of material science advancements, as well as an ability to forecast how the technology might evolve in the coming decades.


Image Courtesy of KieranTimberlake

Friedricher说：“如果现在去建立火星城市，那么不可能去使用透明的材料，因为它们不具备抵御辐射的能力。” “我们在考虑是不是我们已经能够去说可能20年后我们将可以使用透明的材料去建造火星城市，如果这个充满假设性的基地在那时得以建造？我们通过建设这个虚拟现实的城市来考虑这些事情，并把它们做的接近现实。尽管不是完全符合实际，但是至少我们在试图预测20年间科技可以为火星城市提供什么，使得人们更佳接近移居火星的目标。”

同时，火星城市的目标是引起孩子们对设施管理的兴趣，因为这个领域未来将越来越重要。 Olivieri说：“随着建筑越来越复杂，人们将渐渐难以管理建筑物。” “需要有一群专业人才熟知并掌握建筑物当下和未来将要实现的先进技术。”

希望火星城市的下一个阶段将是在地球上建立实际的学习空间，将补充虚拟空间的不足。这个是可预见的未来。当这个目标实现的时候，人们才能真正开始在火星和甚至其他星球生活和建设。

“If Mars City was built now, it would be impossible to have transparency [of the materials] because you couldn’t get enough layers to take care of radiation,” Friedlander says. “Are we close enough that, say, 20 years from now—if this hypothetical base were to get built—there would be a transparent material we could use? We were taking those things into consideration to make something semi-realistic, but trying to predict 20 years in advance what is going to be available.”
Meanwhile, the goal of Mars City piquing kids’ interest in facilities management is a big one because of the field’s growing importance. “Generationally, as buildings keep getting more complicated, it will become more difficult for people to manage buildings,” Olivieri says. “There needs to be a group of people who want to take that on and have the knowledge of the sophisticated technology that nowadays buildings have and will in the future.”
Hopefully, the next phase for Mars City will be a physical learning space here on Earth that will complement the virtual one. That would have to do until the foreseeable future, when people can actually start living and building on Mars and beyond.


出处：本文译自www.archdaily.com/，转载请注明出处。