In the 1970s a couple of “space colony summer studies” where conducted at NASA Ames. The object was to design human space settlements.
Some colonies where designed to carry as much as 10 000 people. Unfortunately they where never realized.
The renderings are breathtaking.
I enjoy them so much partly because they’re cool and partly because I’m imagining there must have been some intention or at least some aspiration, no matter how little, to make them a reality. It is captured quite nicely in the sterile names of the renderings. For example,”View of Bernal Sphere agricultural module (multiple toroids) with cutaway to expose interior”.
It is difficult not to be exhilarated by such monumental ambitions.
You can see the rest and read fun facts here.
Exterior view of a double cylinder colony
Interior view including looking through large windows