Yale University School of Architecture – “Designing” the Future of CASIS

As you might imagine, from time to time, CASIS(Abbreviation: CASIS™) The nonprofit organization that manages the ISS National Lab, which receives at least 50 percent of the U.S. research allocation on the International Space Station to facilitate research that benefits humanity (NASA manages the other 50% and focuses on research for space exploration purposes). gets some very interesting inquiries. Granted, most of those range in some very out-of-the-box ideas to utilize the station through scientific investigation. However, we received a very interesting inquiry from the Yale University School of Architecture that was unlike any request CASIS had received to date.

Each year, the Yale School of Architecture tasks its second-year graduate students to design a complete building as a semester-long project.  Effectively asking, what would your company desire in a first-class facility? They invite members from high ranking companies, or museums (ex. The Smithsonian) to come and speak about what a new, state-of-the-art facility could include. Over the course of the semester, these organizations will check in on the progress of each student’s work and provide insight and recommendations for how this hypothetical headquarters might be better designed.

This year, the Yale School of Architecture asked if they could create a state-of-the-art, 50,000 square foot facility in the heart of uptown Manhattan, right next door to the United Nations. The CASIS response? What a great opportunity to think out-of-the-box with some of our country’s finest creative minds, while providing these students a glimpse into how CASIS functions as an organization.

We were asked by Yale to think of the possibilities. How would a new CASIS headquarter facility in New York look? What would it include and why?

CASIS Chief Operating Office and Yale alumnus Duane Ratliff and I embarked on the university this week to discuss at a high-level, what exactly our organization is tasked by Congress to perform and to provide basic elements to any headquarter facility that the students should include.

An email chain ensued in which CASIS staff mentioned their ideas for the “perfect” facility that would lead to utilization and promotion of the National Lab. Staff recommended everything from mock ups of the ISSInternational Space Station, to laboratories that allow researchers access to test their research in as close to in-situ environments as possible for easy integration to the elements available on station.

The class, with 55 total students, took the information provided by CASIS staff and will begin to individually design the building according to their personal research, technical requirements and creative intuition into how they best feel that the National Laboratory manager’s “new” headquarters facility should be visually represented. Each student will provide their own renderings, drawings and physical models and at the end of the semester, CASIS will get to see each of the finished products, in mock-up fashion, that is.

But why CASIS? Why would the Yale School of Architecture have any interest in creating a “headquarters” for our organization? Mark Foster Gage, Assistant Dean for the Yale School of Architecture and class instructor felt that CASIS was a “fascinating organization, and could be a transformative voice for space-research. With such responsibility, we felt that our students, in collaboration with CASIS representatives could propose a next-generation type of facility that a next-generation organization like CASIS would require. It’s a very contemporary problem and we felt that unlike more traditional design problems—museums, libraries, performance spaces, this is a new problem that would require more progressive and innovative solutions.”

In reality, this is a 9 unit class with the intention to cultivate and enhance the creative intuition of Yale’s 50-plus architecture graduate students – a class that CASIS is incredibly flattered to be a part of. However, in talking further with our COO, Duane Ratliff, it also put into perspective the incredible duty that CASIS is tasked with each day. Yale could have chosen any company or organization to put their students’ attention towards. They chose CASIS because we represent the opportunity for inquiry and groundbreaking discovery that can inspire a nation to do more. To create more.  To think beyond what we have previously thought was possible here on Earth.

I suppose it is ironic that I am writing this blog currently on an airplane, and the in-flight movie is “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” It was mentioned in our meeting with the students, and not to sound over-the-top, but through the investigations CASIS is able to potentially foster on the ISS, it in large measure can potentially determine how the United States chooses to move forward with space exploration. As the quote goes, “with great power, comes great responsibility.”

Our only hope is that when all is said and done, CASIS as an organization is able to return the respect and flattery that Yale (and the American tax payer) has shown by choosing us as the entity to use as a model for their students, allowing their creative juices to run wild.

Much like their work, we look forward to seeing how things ultimately develop… And who knows, maybe someday, a hypothetical facility that houses all the needs for CASIS that demonstrates the full capabilities of space-research might not be so implausible.