Design knowledge integration between architecture and engineering for space habitats: a multi-method review

The development of habitats in extreme environments requires close integration between architectural design knowledge and engineering systems thinking. In space-related contexts, this integration expands beyond isolated technical solutions to encompass spatial organization, human-environment interaction, material strategies, and system coordination across the project lifecycle. Because such habitats operate under extreme conditions and rely on tightly integrated life-support systems, linear design approaches become inadequate, creating a clear industrial need for coordinated frameworks and integrative design guidance for extraterrestrial infrastructure. At the same time, existing research remains dispersed across architectural, engineering, and interdisciplinary studies, limiting a coherent understanding of how design knowledge is structured and integrated in practice. This fragmentation presents challenges for both design coordination and the transfer of research insights into complex engineering-led projects. This study presents a multi-method review integrating systematic literature screening, quantitative mapping, and qualitative thematic synthesis to examine how design knowledge is organized and integrated between architecture and engineering in extreme environment habitat development. A corpus of 215 peer-reviewed publications (1990-2025) is analyzed alongside representative realized and prototype projects to connect research themes with design and engineering practice. The review identifies four recurring thematic domains: disciplinary structuring, human-environment interaction, material and structural systems, and knowledge transfer from extreme environment analogs, and reveals a consistent three-stage development pattern from concept formation to system-level consolidation and adaptive strategies. Together, these findings provide a structured analytical framework clarifying how design knowledge integration between architecture and engineering evolves across complex extraterrestrial habitat projects.