Space-Age Houses

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMP3OW4QWD_index_0.html

Space houses on Earth

24 August 2004
An ESA-designed house that uses technology designed for space could
become the basis of the new German Antarctic station, Neumayer-III. The
new station has to meet stringent laws set up to protect the Antarctic
environment, which is where the use of space technology comes in.

In 2001 the Alfred Wegener Institute that is responsible for polar and
oceanic research, and the German Antarctic station, saw the initial
design of the SpaceHouse and decided to join with ESA in developing a
conceptual design for a polar house based on the SpaceHouse
technologies. The design they came up with was presented at the 28th
meeting of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research that took
place in Bremen last month.

...

The house is designed to be autonomous. It uses energy-efficient solar
power as well as advanced systems for recycling and cleaning water.
Another idea, now on the drawing board, is to include a system to remove
pathogenic particles in the sub-micron range from the air

...

[So, again, advanced work towards gridless homes...]

Discussed at:

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid/08/27/1638252&threshold=2&tid6&tid

Space-Age Houses

Posted by michael on Friday August 27, @...
from the forecast-calls-for-snow dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The dream of building the Jetson's Skypad
Apartment may come to true because technology designed for space could
become the basis of the new German Antarctic station. The same
ultra-light composites that ESA uses onboard its spacecraft for antennas
and solar panels, will be used to make a self-supporting lightweight
shell-like structure able to withstand severe earthquakes. This approach
is in sharp contrast to many contemporary design solutions that use ever
more steel and concrete..."