Defin(design)ing the Human Domain: the Process of Architectural Integration in Long-Duration Space Facilities

Long-duration space facilities--or space habitats--pose a particular challenge to the Architect. The duration of the project's development, the breadth and intensity of effort required of all the associated engineering disciplines, and the comparative paucity of hard data available on long-duration habitability in microgravity environments: these factors require an intensive approach to project management, and one which must begin during the very first stages of preliminary design.

By streamlining project management with the design process into a continuous dialectic of analysis, design, reassessment and action, the architectural integration of a space habitat can be effected. This hybrid process describes a new kind of design discipline which is uniquely suited to the nature of its domain.