The air quality in Delhi is typically in the Severe or Hazardous levels and poses serious threats to the health and wellbeing of residents and tourists. Those who are not well-off are, in particular, at risk due to not being able to escape into clean air and being constantly exposed to hazardous air conditions. Indian-based practice Studio Symbiosis Architects has developed a solution that can be available to all, not just those wealthy enough to afford air purifiers. 

AÅ©ra is a series of colossal air-purifying towers topped with green planters with drip irrigation. Each tower would consist of two chambers: one that would increase the relative velocity of the air and the other for purifying the polluted air and then blowing it out at high speeds and lower temperatures. This process would create a pressure difference that then pushes warm, polluted air back toward the tower. 

Studio Symbiosis Architects have speculated that a standard 18-metre-tall tower could clean 30 million cubic meters of air every day and have the capacity to clean 1,115,000 cubic meters of air per hour. 

The AÅ©ra tower is only the first part of the firm’s proposal; the implementation plan would begin with installing 60-metre-tall towers in a ring around the city border to halt the flow of external pollution. This would be followed by the smaller 18-metre towers installed in select locations along a grid to provide clean air throughout the city. 

The system would be supplemented with ‘AÅ©ra velocity’ gadgets that can be latched into the tops of cars and ‘AÅ©ra Falcon’ drones that would fly around the city and monitor its pollution levels. Together, the system is dubbed the AÅ©ra Hive.

Images via Studio Symbiosis Architects