BIG

LUNAR, 2024

Traditional data centers account for about 1% of global electricity consumption and up to 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, with an expected 50% increase in their electrical footprint by 2025. In collaboration with Lonestar Data Holdings, BIG designed a 3D-printed data center to travel to the moon on a future NASA space mission. The equipment, measuring 26 x 17 cm, can store up to eight terabytes of data and will be entirely solar-powered. Illustrating BIG's ethos of giving form to the future, it is designed to feature the profiles of two U.S. astronauts, Charlie Duke and Nicole Stott, whose faces will cast changing shadows throughout the day.

This marks the first time that data will be stored on the moon and signifies the initial step in space becoming a recognized home for data management. The center is representative of both everything that humanity has accomplished in space and how much more opportunity exists. By storing data on the moon, we can create a greener future here on Earth.

The space mission will last one moon day (14 Earth days). The center will rely on solar energy during the lunar day, with the equipment ceasing operation at lunar nightfall, while the profiles of Duke and Stott continue to leave an everlasting shadow on the surface of the moon.

BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group is a Copenhagen, New York, London, Barcelona, Shenzhen, Zurich, Los Angeles and Oslo-based group of architects, designers, urbanists, landscape professionals, interior and product designers, researchers, and inventors. Led by Bjarke Ingels, the studio is currently involved in projects throughout Europe, the Americas, Asia and the Middle East. BIG’s architecture emerges out of a careful analysis of how contemporary life constantly evolves and changes. BIG believes that by hitting the fertile overlap between pragmatic and utopia, architects can find the freedom to change the surface of our planet, to better fit contemporary life forms.

www.big.dk

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