The Aurelia Institute has selected designer Will Root and his orbital Tycho space station, which boasts 10 times more interior space than the International Space Station, as the winners of their inaugural Aurelia Prize in Design for Space Urbanism. The organization also announced the four Honorable Mentions in the $20,000 global design competition, which included several alternative off-world space-habitat concepts.
Along with the $20,000 USD first prize, Root is invited to take part in a parabolic research flight as part of Aurelia Institute’s Horizon Zero Gravity Program. The inaugural award winner will also have his designs added to the organization’s Space Architecture Trade Study, which they describe as a “public resource to gather innovative approaches to space habitat design for academics, industry professionals, and the broader space architecture community.”
In an email to The Debrief, Aurelia Institute CEO, Ariel Ekblaw, CEO, noted that since his organization launched the competition in December 2025, they have been “overwhelmed by the level of interest and expertise from across industry and academia,” including submissions of over 200 complex space habitat proposals from an international pool of designers representing a wide range of disciplines.
“My fellow judges and I were so impressed with the quality, variety, and sheer creativity of the submissions we received,” Ekbaw explained.
TYCHO’s Terminal Orbit Maintains Constant Solar Power
According to the organization’s original contest announcement, off-world habitat concepts could include land-based options such as colonies on the Moon or Mars, orbital designs like the International Space Station, only on a much larger scale, or deep-space options that could be parked at gravitationally stable Lagrange points within the solar system. Proposals were also expected to emphasize a spaced station’s utility, its benefit to Earth, and its operational efficiency in the challenging environment of space.
With Tycho, Root created a station that he says fills the “missing middle” between smaller, modular concepts currently under consideration and larger theoretical space habitats like those proposed by industry pioneer Gerard O’Neill, by “a realistic, scalable architecture for permanent human civilization in orbit—one designed to grow incrementally, operate continuously, and support life and industry at civic scale.”
Tycho station. Image Credit: The Aurelia Institute, Will Root.
The first benefit the designer highlighted was that his proposed Earth-orbiting station has its orientation. Specifically, Root’s design operates in a Terminal Orbit. According to his designs, this orientation “achieves near-continuous solar generation” while eliminating the need for solar panels and a radiator to be moved with the Sun.
Tycho station will maintain a Terminal Orbit that allows its solar panels to stay in direct sunlight at all times. Image Credit: The Aurelia Institute, Will Root.
“In LEO (Low Earth Orbit), its five-kilometer cable-stayed flexible solar array is passively tensioned by gravity-gradient forces with oscillation damping—reducing reliance on active attitude control while maintaining the station’s primary orientation and planetary alignment,” Root’s proposal explained.
TYCHO Expands to 250,000 Square Feet of Habitable Space
According to the Aurelia Prize judges, part of what made Tycho’s submission stand out was its ability to leverage the unique conditions of space to permit its size and scale. For example, the ship uses an origami-like design that expands from a small storage container into a massive living space.
Massive Tycho station packs its 250,000 square feet of living space, which is 10X that of the International Space Station, inside a single Starship. Image Credit: The Aurelia Institute, Will Root.
Notably, this patent-pending “RootShell” pressure-vessel technology requires only a single Starship launch to “deploy modules exceeding 250,000 cubic meters, without the compromises of soft inflatables or the need for extensive orbital assembly.” Root’s submission noted that while his station delivers ten times the volume of the ISS and is available “from day one,” thanks to its deployment method, its versatility also makes it a ‘backbone’ for future growth.
Tycho’s origami-like structure allows it to open up after deployment. Image Credit: The Aurelia Institute, Will Root.
When Root planned for daily life aboard Tycho, he designed the ‘microgravity-first’ by concentrating rotation within lightweight internal centrifuges, while the primary living structure does not rotate. According to the submission, this design “simplifies docking, avoids rotating seals, and allows mass-intensive systems—such as water, storage, and radiation shielding—to remain in microgravity.”
Cross-section of a 60m diameter artificial gravity centrifuge showing ten levels of habitat arranged along a gradient from Martian gravity at the outer edge to microgravity at the core. Image Credit: The Aurelia Institute, Will Root.
Tycho also features a double-ladder configuration. Root said that this “enables civic, industrial, and research districts” within the habitat to expand incrementally as demand for space requires. This makes Tycho a highly versatile ‘living’ station that can expand or contract as needed.
Interior view of the centrifuge habitat centered on a five-acre park operating at Martian gravity, illustrating large-scale communal space enabled by rotational environments. Image Credit: The Aurelia Institute, Will Root.
When describing the human experience for theoretical Tycho inhabitants, Root’s submission explained that life on his conceptual space habitat is defined “not by confinement but by continuity.” This includes thousands of theoretical Tycho residents inhabiting “multi-story interiors organized around shared ‘outdoor’ spaces, public landscapes, and collective gathering areas.”
A microgravity restaurant inside an 8-meter-diameter, single-axis expanding RootShell pressure vessel, demonstrating new spatial typologies for dining in orbit. Image Credit: The Aurelia Institute, Will Root.
“Gravity is a gradient rather than a binary, and architecture restores familiar rhythms of daily life within an unmistakably orbital environment,” Root explained.
A microgravity corridor linking larger habitat modules, featuring integrated plant walls designed to support air revitalization and crew well-being. Image Credit: The Aurelia Institute, Will Root.
Ekblaw heralded the designer’s accomplishment, noting that: “Tycho is exactly the kind of well-considered, aspirational, and yet still near-term credible concept we were hoping to find and support with the Aurelia Prize.”
‘Humanity is at an Inflection Point’
Along with Root’s designs for Tycho, the Aurelia Proze’s judging panel, which consisted of Ekblaw (who earned her PhD in aerospace structures from MIT), NASA Artemis II astronaut Victor Glover, Bjarke Ingels, Founder of BIG, visual artist Andrew Zuckerman, Thomas Heatherwick, Founder of Heatherwick Studio, and Olga Bannova, Director of the Space Architecture Graduate Program, University of Houston, awarded four Honorable Mentions.
These included bioARK: biogenic architecture to evolve beyond the cradle by Christopher Maurer, Lynn Rothschild, and James Head III, Orbital Emergency Granary designed by Filip Śledź and Maciej Jamrozik, Project Loop designed by Silvio De Mio, and Zephyr submitted by Hugo Shelley and JP Hastings-Edrei
All four Honorable Mention designers will receive $1,000 USD. Also, like Root, they will all be invited to join the upcoming Horizon flight and to contribute their space habitat concepts to the Space Architecture Trade Study.
When discussing the significance of the competition and his successful design, Root noted that the Aurelia Prize comes at a pivotal moment, when large-scale human access to potentially living in low Earth orbit is nearly within reach, “but the station architecture to support it does not yet exist.”
“Tycho is developing a new class of dramatically larger deployable pressure vessels to enable that future, and we’re honored to have that vision recognized by Aurelia,” he said.
Ekblaw echoed the contest winner’s sentiments, while also invoking one of the pioneers of space habitat design.
“Humanity is at an inflection point, as we become a truly space-faring species in this century,” the Aurelia CEO said. “There are a lot of incredibly talented people out there putting serious work into designing humanity’s future in space, and it’s been thrilling to see some of their best work through this prize cycle. I think Gerry O’Neill would be proud.”
The winner and honorable mentions were announced live onstage on April 8 at Beyond the Cradle, the annual space conference co-hosted by Aurelia Institute, MIT’s Space Exploration Initiative, and the MIT Media Lab.
Christopher Plain is a Science Fiction and Fantasy novelist and Head Science Writer at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his books at plainfiction.com, or email him directly at [email protected].
