Second Solar spaceship, Germany

The small German city of Böblingen is now home to what might be the world’s biggest and most elaborate children’s toy. The Second Solar spaceship, designed by Different Futures and constructed for the Sensapolis fun park earlier this year, is a three-level, 850 sq m interactive replica of a real shuttle, albeit one better suited to exploration of the cognitive rather than the galactic variety.

Click here to see more of the Second Solar spaceship.

The interior of the installation, which includes a 3-D cinema, a laboratory, a warp-core, a medical centre and an alien breeding ground, was designed by Clostermann Design in conjunction with Kohlbecker Architekten. The set even includes jet turbines and circular docking pods ready to connect to orbiting stations. So much for the old days when kids in capes had to rely on cardboard boxes and plastic steering wheels to zip around space.

ADDRESS

Flugfeld-Allee
Böblingen-Sindelfingen

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).