We are broadcasting a recording of an interview with Dr. Lynn Rothschild, Senior Research Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. The conversation took place within the course Emerging Fields in Architecture at TU Wien (Winter Semester 2021/22).

As part of this radio series, architecture students interviewed researchers, creatives, and experts from diverse disciplines. The central question of these conversations was: How do we live in the future? Students explored multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary strategies for planning, building, and living together—both today and in the future.

Dr. Lynn Rothschild is passionate about the origin and evolution of life on Earth and beyond, while also pioneering the use of synthetic biology to enable space exploration. She emphasizes that just as traveling abroad provides new insights into home, the search for life elsewhere allows us to gain a more mature scientific, philosophical, and ethical perception of life on Earth. She holds several roles: Senior Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, Research and Technology Lead for NASA Headquarters’ Space Technology Mission Directorate (Bio and Bio-Inspired Technologies), and Adjunct Professor at both Brown University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on how life—particularly microbes—evolves in the context of the physical environment, both here on Earth and potentially elsewhere. (1)

Within the framework of How do we live in the future?, Dr. Rothschild brings a unique perspective—even from 384,400 km away—on how the future of habitability beyond Earth might look, thanks to advances in Mycotecture. Raising questions of time and cost feasibility in space, she uses the metaphor of a turtle carrying its habitat everywhere. Similarly, NASA faces the trade-off of transporting habitats and structures “on the back” of its missions to lunar and planetary surfaces. (2) A novel biology-based solution is now emerging: using fungal mycelial composites to grow structures off-planet—from habitats to furniture. (3)

This raises a further question: if habitats on the Moon and Mars could be made of fully degradable, bio-based materials like fungal mycelium, what lessons could be applied back on Earth? Could strategies of scarcity, in-situ resources, and closed-loop life support inspire more sustainable approaches in today’s building sector?

The interview was conducted by Ludovica Breitfeld, Margaryta Kaliberda, and Carlotta Siciliani, and produced as part of the course Emerging Fields in Architecture at Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien).

More information about Dr. Lynn J. Rothschild:

NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/people/lynn-j-rothschild/

Brown University: https://vivo.brown.edu/display/lr3

References:

(1) https://www.nasa.gov/people/lynn-j-rothschild/

(2, 3) Hall, Loura „Mycotecture Off-Planet https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/2021_Phase_I/Mycotecture_Off_Planet/

– – –

Broadcast Focus 2022: Future Living

 Architects are innovators: spatial, social and technological innovations, the cognitive conception of which often lies far in the past, can be found in numerous of their concepts and designs.

This broadcast series explores the question How do we live in the future? through interviews with researchers, creatives, and experts from different fields. The aim was to uncover multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary strategies for planning, building, and living together now and in the future. The broadcasts feature both concrete proposals and far-reaching visions.

The series originated in the TU Wien module Emerging Fields in Architecture (WS 21/22), which introduces and discusses knowledge from new architectural and engineering research areas, encouraging students to integrate these insights into their own design work.

 – – –

Radio Spaceuriosity at Radio Orange 94.0

Every 2nd Tuesday of the month

A broadcast by Sandra Häuplik-Meusburger and Verena Holzgethan

http://o94.at/radio/sendereihe/spaceuriosity/

Live Stream: http://o94.at/live/

Cultural broadcasting archive: https://cba.fro.at/series/spaceuriosity