Project Description Space is no longer reserved for the imagination. With NASA’s Artemis program ushering in a new era of crewed missions and infrastructure projects like the Lunar Gateway taking form, the Moon is no longer a distant dream but a scheduled destination. Lunar Commons City reimagines the Moon not as a survival base, but as a site for experimenting with new forms of community—a city shaped not by humans alone, but by robots embodying philosophy and sensation. Positioned within the shift from government-led development to the private-led era of “New Space 2.0,” the project envisions exploration expanded into the realms of life and urbanity. Created in collaboration between Hyundai Motor Group’s L Project Team and IVAAIU City, the project simulates an autonomous lunar city divided into four zones: High Frontier, Shared Platform, Lunar Icon, and Lunar Commons. Each stage embodies values ranging from survival and cooperation to symbolism and citizenship. Within these zones, autonomous rovers—VOLT-9, UNIT-02, FLARA, and CURA—construct and operate the city, acting as more than machines: they are active agents orchestrating its rhythms and sensibilities. Grounded in the premise that the smallest unit of a city is movement, these rovers are not passive tools but co-creators of the city alongside humans. The 3RO system (Rover + Road + Robotics) becomes the driving force that animates the city as a living organism. Lunar Commons City imagines the Moon not as the endpoint of exploration but as the starting point of coexistence, asking who we might become, with whom, and how we will live together in future space. About the Creator As a ZER01NE alumnus, IVAAIU City returns this year as part of ZER01NE LAB to envision a prototype of a future lunar city where autonomous rovers and modular infrastructures converge. Drawing on its distinctive urban-engineering methodology and architectural imagination, the collective develops a framework for cities beyond Earth. Following their earlier project Lunar Base: 100 Days Before Arrival, this new work extends the narrative of space development into questions of publicness and community.

Curator's Note Space is no longer reserved for the imagination. With NASA’s Artemis program ushering in a new era of crewed missions and infrastructure projects like the Lunar Gateway taking form, the Moon is no longer a distant dream but a scheduled destination. Yet framing the Moon solely as an object of exploration risks obscuring its deeper implications. It signals a historical shift from state-led space programs to the regime of New Space 2.0, where private enterprise and capital dictate the horizon, and exploration is reframed as an extension of economic life itself. The Moon thus becomes less a neutral frontier than a contested ground: will it be reduced to a site of conquest and extraction, or could it serve as a stage where the possibilities of coexistence are tested? If we are to imagine a city on the Moon, what philosophies and technologies must guide it—and whose values will such a city embody? Lunar Commons City imagines the Moon not as a survival base, but as a beacon for a new communal order. Building on the 2024 ZER01NE project Lunar Base Plan: 100 Days Before Humanity’s Arrival, this year’s expanded scenario is realized in collaboration with Hyundai Motor’s L Project Team. Starting from the premise that the smallest unit of a city is movement, the project simulates an autonomous city in four phases—High Frontier, Shared Platform, Lunar Icon, and Lunar Commons—each designed around the values of survival, cooperation, symbolism, and citizenship. At the center of this process, rovers serve not only as functional tools but as conceptual agents that embody the city’s philosophy. Prototype lunar rovers and construction robots are deployed across a sand surface that evokes the lunar terrain. Moving as part of a 3RO system (Rover + Road + Robotics), they act not as inert devices but as agents that unfold the city’s structure and identity. Conceived by IVAAIU City, the five-stage “Lunar City” emerges step by step: from a pre-urban ground, to a survival-driven science outpost (Stage 2), to a modular cooperative infrastructure (Stage 3), to the performative creation of a civic symbol (Stage 4), and finally into the shared framework of the Lunar Commons City (Stage 5). Each stage is articulated through planning animations and scale models. In the High Frontier, the rover VOLT-9 establishes survival infrastructure through autonomous navigation and real-time relay networks. In the Shared Platform, UNIT-02 deploys AI-driven swarm networks to interconnect modules and maintain order. The Lunar Icon phase features FLARA, which generates symbolic performances for the city and broadcasts them live. Finally, CURA anchors the Lunar Commons, mediating between residents and the city through art and data, redefining civic experience in a nonhuman environment. These units exist not simply as functional machines but as ‘moving concepts’ that materialize the rhythm and philosophy of the city. If past space narratives have framed the Moon as an object of colonization, Lunar Commons City recalls the spirit of Dunkirk—a collective survival enacted not through grand conquest, but through the cooperation of many small agents. The Moon here becomes not the endpoint of exploration, but the starting point of coexistence. What kind of beings, what kind of community, will we form when living on the Moon? This project is both a rewritten lunar narrative and a diagram of how humanity might inhabit space. The Moon becomes not a sum of technologies, but a testing ground for a new communal ethics. When the first human finally sets foot in this city, they will not be greeted by a perfectly orchestrated system, but by rovers that have slowly and persistently shaped the rhythms of civilization. Thus, before them, the question returns: what truly anchors the beginning of civilization?