Francis Field

The first building in space was completed some time ago now, and is largely ignored by the architectural community. Addressing architecture’s apparent disregard for space, the project presented here takes its cue from Yves Klein’s advice to painters:

'Today anyone who paints space must actually go into space to paint, but he must go there without any faking, and neither in an aeroplane, a parachute, or a rocket: he must go there by his own means, by an autonomous, individual force.' ~ Yves Klein

The proposal describes the construction of an ocean in space, using asteroids as the raw material and the Translunar Lagrange Point (L2) as the site. Initiated by the collision of ice-based Trojan asteroids 617 Patroclus and 624 Hektor, the embryonic ocean is cultured until it reaches a scale and structure similar to other watery moons of the Solar System; transforming the Lagrange Point from datum into land.

'We’ll go into orbit. We’ll go to the Moon. This business has no limits.' ~ Richard Branson