Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is participating in “Mission Spatiale,” a new permanent exhibition at the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie in Paris, France. The exhibition presents space exploration through an immersive visitor experience whilst providing an overview of current and future research, technology and discussion about space missions. The exhibition opens on October 23, 2023. 

A collaboration between SOM and the European Space Agency (ESA), Moon Village is a cross-disciplinary vision for a permanent human settlement on the moon. Developed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the design emerges not just from engineering constraints, but from an understanding of how humans experience the spaces they inhabit and a commitment to creating an environment that supports comfortable, long-term living in outer space. At the same time, the Moon Village project explores new strategies for how humans can coexist and utilize resources sustainably— providing knowledge that can also be applied to problems here on Earth.

Represented in the exhibition by a detailed scale model of a single habitat module, Moon Village was first unveiled in 2019 and has since evolved into an ongoing research project that combines the expertise of the space industry with knowledge from architecture, urban planning, science, and psychology. 

Curated by Sophie Lecuyer and Mark Read of Universcience, the exhibition is arranged in five sections: Explore, Travel, Gateway to Space, Living in Space, and Food for Thought. It is accompanied by a series of lectures and a book, “Mission Spatiale,” written by Roland Lehoucq.