The “Dodecaplex Space Ecosystem” imagines a future form of space travel

As if it were straight out of a sci-fi story, the "Dodecaplex Space Ecosystem" is a traveling spacecraft that also provides a hospitable environment for inhabitants. The Dodecaplex was one of the many submissions that aimed to win the top prize in the latest Jacques Rougerie Foundation International Architecture Competition. The annual competition gives architects, designers, and engineers the opportunity to show off their innovation by creating designs that address environmental and technological topics and issues. Entrants submit to three categories: Ocean, Space, and Sea Level Rise.

The molecular-form spacecraft was envisioned by a three-member team called O+R from Spain: architect Rafael Ortiz Martínez de Carnero; biologist Fernando Ortiz Martínez de Carnero; and mathematician Manuel Domínguez de La Iglesia. Their design made it into the top-10 shortlist for the "Innovation and Architecture for Space" Award.

O+R shared more details about their design below.

Project description: "Gazing into space has always generated interest and longing in humans desiring to learn about it, to know it, and with each day that passes, we are closer than ever to realizing interplanetary travel. However, the arrival to other solar systems has always been curtailed because of distances and current space motor technology, sustaining our desire to discover new frontiers anchored to our home planet."

"The Dodecaplex Space Ecosystem is a project conceived to solve the current needs for space exploration, focusing on: avoiding dependency on Earth’s resources, adaptation to new technologies, and maintaining life.

"The Spacecraft will act as a future place of residence and method of transportation to other planetary systems. Various concepts are utilized in the creation of such a complex and sophisticated platform for space living and transportation."

"Applying membranes as functional units, separating spaces, protecting the Station from the exterior, we will maintain life. Using biological processes such as photosynthesis, essential for cell life, to produce oxygen for human life, we generate the capacity to sustain a whole organism, or in this case, a whole station."

"Capable of adaptation, as a modular installation in expansion and continuous evolution, the Station would welcome additions as a result of new scientific discoveries and technologies. In an expanding universe, we will apply pure geometry in the form of a perfect polyhedron, providing the ideal living space."

All images courtesy of O+R.