FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2020
Recently, Noida, India-based multi-disciplinary architectural practice Studio Symbiosis has announced its design for Aura air-purifying towers, envisioned to help Delhi, India reduce increasing levels of air pollution.
Currently, the studio describes the city as a “gas chamber” claiming that the increasing levels of thick smog can be attributed to industrial waste, diesel vehicles, crop burning and power plants. The World Health Organization adds that as of November 2019, “Residents of Delhi are breathing about 25 times more toxic air than the permissible limit.”
The Aura Towers
Acting as lungs for the city, the towers intend to collect polluted air and redistribute it in a purified form.
Designed in two different sizes, the tapered and twisting forms have been planned out that one version will measure 18 meters (59 feet) in height, while the larger tower is 60 meters high. Although the smaller tower is slated to perform as secondary system placed within the city's perimeter, the larger tower will rely on strong winds and will be combined with several other towers of its size to form a circle around the city’s border.
Stunning design on these new towers in India that help reduce air pollution #design #ClimateEmergencyhttps://t.co/9GJctNoyfW
— malcolm poynton (@e1even5ive) January 9, 2020
The placement hopes to achieve a barrier against external pollution. To do achieve this, inside the towers are two vertically stacked chambers that are divided by a filtration system. Air enters through the top chamber’s intake vents and is compressed to run through the central filtration system, cleaning the air and then exits the tower through the bottom exhaust vents.
Studio Symbiosis reports that the smaller towers will be capable of cleaning roughly 30 million cubic meters of air every day.
In addition to the technological aspects of the towers, the external design of the systems also incorporates green planters which will cover 60-70% of the surface to help produce clean oxygen.
What Happens Next
With designs completed, Studio Symbiosis is currently planning the construction in Eco Park—an 890-acre park currently under development in Delhi. The company intends to build 11 towers for the site, helping to make the park India’s “biggest manmade biodiversity park.”
In the future, the studio hopes to use the towers to expand a wider clean-up scheme, known as Aura Hive. The proposal involves previous proposals made by the company including Aura Falcon Drones—a network of drones to provide live updates of pollution levels—and Aura Velocity—an air purifying attachment intended for vehicles.
Similar Projects
In January 2018, a 28-foot-tall air purifying tower located in northern China, was built as part of a venture into removing pollutants artificially from the air. Researchers from the Institute of Earth Environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences oversee the tower’s operation.
Since construction was completed on the project in 2017, PaintSquare Daily News reported at the time that the tower has created more than 353 million cubic feet of clean air per day, meaning that, on severely polluted days, smog has been reduced to moderate levels.
Another tower with a similar goal was constructed in Beijing in 2016. Designed and built by Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde and his team, the tower stands just over 22 feet tall.
Tagged categories: Air barriers; Air quality; Environmental Controls; Green Infrastructure; Hazardous air pollutants; Infrastructure; Infrastructure; Technology
