BIG will design massive Mars simulation city in the United Arab Emirates

Bjarke Ingels, the Danish wunderkind architect behind ambitious projects like Via 57 West in Manhattan and designs for Hyperloop One, continues to innovate with an eye toward the future.

His next project, which was just announced, will be working with a team of Emirati scientists, engineers and designers from the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre to help design the Mars Science City.

The massive 1.9 million-square-foot, 500 million United Arab Emirates dirham ($140 million)-space simulation center will be built in the desert of the United Arab Emirates and is intended to be a “viable and realistic model” for simulated living on Mars.

The city will comprise laboratories for food, energy, water, and agricultural testing, according to the Emirates News Agency. It will also include a museum and educational centers. As for its architectural components, walls will be 3D-printed using sand from the Emirati desert.

Mars Science City is part of the the UAE’s mission to lead the global race in taking people to Mars and creating a viable community there. In addition to its many laboratory experiments, the center also hopes to address food, sustainability, and energy issues all over the world. Finally, the project will implement an experiment wherein a team will spend a year living in the simulated planet for a year.

Via: Emirates News Agency (h/t Designboom)