Signal 2: To Combat Air Pollution…Let’s Build These 100m-High Pollution-Absorbing Towers

In New Delhi, toxic smog continues to harm the respiratory and cardiovascular systems and cause disruptions like car pileups, and flight delays. Last fall, a NYTimes op-ed piece titled “Choking on Air in New Delhi”, equated the air quality to smoking more than 2 packs of cigarettes a day.

“The Smog Project”, a concept developed by Dubai-based architecture studio Znera Space, is shortlisted for a World Architecture Festival 2018 award in the “Experimental Future Project” category for “proposals that challenge conventional thinking” reported by CNN. The proposal, rendered above, comprises of a network of 100m high towers that would absorb the smog and recycle it back as clean air. These futuristic-looking structures would have filtration mechanisms at the bottom to catch pollutants, force the air through 5 stages of filtration, and fans at the apex to pump out the purified air. These towers powered by solar hydrogen cells and connected by skybridges. Each tower would be capable of producing about 3.2m cubic meters of clean air each day says Znera.

For far too long, we’ve accepted pollution as the price of progress. So it is really exciting to see bold concepts that push the envelope. However, even if these towers became a reality, it should not replace policies to mitigate emission measures.