THE SMOG PROJECT
06 Nov 2018
To combat the alarming rise of pollution levels in Dehli, which has been labelled the world’s most polluted city, Dubai-based firm Znera Space has released a design for The Smog Project, a network of innovative smog filtering towers that will cleanse the city’s toxic air and generate a cleaner, living environment.
Industrial waste, excessive vehicles, toxic fuel sources such as diesel and kerosene, and nearby power plants, have all contributed to the dangerous levels of pollution that plague that Indian capital city of Delhi. In addition to this, recent crop burning in the adjacent Haryana and Punjabi regions has enflamed the pollution levels and caused a fluctuation in the smog that coats the city and surrounding areas.
The nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds that are expelled by these factors react with the intense sunlight that is common to India and creates a thick, toxic smog. The levels of carcinogenic pollutants in Delhi are currently ten times greater than those produced in Beijing.
Znera Space has devised a plan that would see a network of smog filtration towers situated throughout the city that would significantly reduce the levels of toxic pollution in the air and create a clean, breathable city.
“It’s the first step in the right direction and that first step has to be a bold one,” said Najmus Chowdhry, principal architect at Znera. “We drew up this dystopia to shock people into realising that if something isn’t done, we are approaching an irreversible disaster.
“The situation in Delhi is grave and since I am from India, from Punjab, and spend a lot of time there, I feel there isn’t enough being done to even think about how to tackle this critical situation. These schemes about vehicles with odd and even number plates don’t go far enough.”
Solar power acts as the key form of energy for the towers in order to make them as renewable and sustainable as possible. The towers follow a hexagonal grid that allies with the urban layout of Delhi. Each tower is 100 metres high and is placed at a key node throughout the city, and will generate a volume of semi-clean air that spreads out across two kilometres. The towers would be connected via a network of sky bridges, built with Hydrogen Generating Cells to generate power.
The project would begin in a small space around a single district in order to gauge the success rate of the towers before the entire network is constructed.
Znera proposed for filtration pods to be used at the base of the towers that would capture the toxic pollutants and circulate clean air back out via propellers at the top.
Inflows from the base of the tower would suck in the air and pass it through five stages of filtration, which includes charcoal-activated carbon, negative ion generators and electrostatically-charged plasma, and will trap any toxic particles. The air is then generated up where it is passed through a photo-catalyst filter in order to sterilise bacteria and viruses found in the air before it is then released back out into the atmosphere.
The particles that are collected by the filters could be reused to create concrete, graphene or ink. This, in addition to the solar power generators, ensures the towers are a highly sustainable response to Delhi’s pollution levels.
It is estimated that the towers would generate an average of 3.2 million cubic metres of clear air daily.
The Smog Project has been shortlisted in the Experimental Project Category for the World Architecture Festival, which will take place in late November 2018. It is hoped that, even if the project does not go ahead, the ideas will generate action to be taken in order to provide sustainable solutions to smog, not only in Delhi, but across the world.