# Recycled homeware collection envisions life on Mars Roc H Biel's Martian Relics critique space colonization through five speculative objects. - **Source:** [design archives | designboom | architecture & design magazine](https://brifing.si/source/11868f8d-1e20-41ac-bc2d-8c5af32d721b) - **Published:** 2026-08-03 - **Topic:** [Design & UX](https://brifing.si/c/design) - **Original article:** - **On Brifing:** https://brifing.si/s/f908d6aa-a403-403e-b8e8-53051037122d ## Design project questioning Martian life London-based designer Roc H Biel created the 'Martian Relics' collection exploring how daily life might evolve if humans settled on Mars. Comprising five functional household items, the collection examines how resource scarcity and environmental conditions could shape culture. The project offers a critical perspective on the space race while highlighting current ecological issues on Earth. ## Industrial waste meets rammed earth All objects combine rammed earth - one of humanity's oldest construction techniques - with recycled stainless steel from industrial components like valves and sheet metal offcuts. These materials symbolize sustainable production methods that could become part of future domestic life. The material selection emphasizes recycling as necessity rather than aesthetic choice under resource constraints. ## Innovative 12-part mold technology Leveraging his industrial mold design background, Biel developed multipart molds with up to twelve components for the rammed earth construction. A single-axis continuous pressing process compacted the earth layer by layer, achieving geometric precision uncommon in traditional rammed earth while preserving its characteristic texture and mass. ## Deep-space inspired mirror The Faded Signal table mirror draws from the geometry of large antennas built to receive signals from space. Its softened reflection presents a future vision where humans focus more on reception than projection. The polished surface creates a slightly blurred reflection of Lanzarote's Mars-like terrain, challenging perceptions of reality. ## Satellite-tech water filter Slow Water multi-stage filter adopts satellite technology's formal language, emphasizing the finite nature of humanity's most essential resource. The design transforms drinking into a ritual, with water droplets accumulating on the polished plate after filtration creating a visual celebration of resource value. ## Memorial flower pot for Gaia Last Offering combines flower pot and memorial typologies in a headstone-like form, imagining a future where nature commands renewed reverence. The design anticipates plants becoming sacred in scenarios where nature is the scarcest resource. A cross formed in negative space crowns the rammed earth and steel structure. ## Nostalgic window and gravity plate Eroded Horizon window, inspired by Jørn Utzon's Can Lis, reflects on environmental loss and memory. Its frame reveals only white, presenting a distant, desaturated view of the Mediterranean as untouchable nostalgia. Gravity Well key plate visualizes gravitational pull through its curved surface around a steel sphere, informed by space physics. ## Implications for design's future role Photographed in Lanzarote's volcanic landscape - used by ESA for astronaut training - the collection underscores handmade production's importance. Each of the five unique objects (up to 22cm and 4kg) examines relationships between material scarcity, environmental responsibility, and everyday life's future. The project questions planetary escape notions, suggesting Earth's environmental challenges would define any off-world settlement. ## Sources covering this story - https://www.designboom.com/design/recycled-aerospace-steel-rammed-earth-homeware-collection-life-mars-roc-h-biel-martian-relics/ — --- _Summary written by Brifing from the original reporting. Copyright in the original article belongs to its publisher; read the full piece at the link above._