Smog Free Project
The foremost concern with respect to contemporary design is to cater to a sustainable, non-polluting and green designs that complement the nature’s way of life or even better the one that helps revitalization of the surrounding environment. And the architects, designers and artists of the contemporary age are consciously evolving their ideas in sync with this one thought – “negative indent on environmental pollution”.
Like Paul Virilio said, “When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane, you also invent the plane crash; when you invent electricity, you also invent electrocution; every technology carries its own negativity which is invented at the same time as technical progress.” But how to answer for that regression in the environment happening in the name of progressive development of yesterday? Many a few innovators out there are striving to generate eco adaptive solutions and amongst them is Dutch designer Daan Roosegaarde. His manifesto is in development of interactive solutions for tomorrow by using the forces available in nature, that’ll help reduce the negative impact on the environment by at least a bit. Air pollution is by far the most dominant environmental hazard that every urban geo sphere faces. And though the process of revival is excruciatingly slow, baby steps are compulsively needed to achieve the crawl, walk and finally the run. “Pollution. It’s really weird that we have accepted it as something normal.” 
– Daan Roosegaarde Lilliputian in scale compared to the whole, one of the keystone project by Studio Roosegarde is the Smog Free Tower – An avant-garde to convert the environmental smog into clean fresh air. The technology used here is relatively common, the indoor air purifying systems commonly seen in hospitals to provide a sterile and clean environment. Imagine a vacuum cleaner sucking up all the pollution and coughing jewllery? 23 foot, upscaled and inverted, this structure using patented ion technology creates a bubble of space where clean air becomes prevalent, than a luxury, which it is, in the hemisphere called urbanism. This can be implemented from anywhere between a small plaza/park to an entire city as a volume. Now consider a possibility of an entire city going smog free, an entire urban bubble of fresh clean air! Who wouldn’t want a clean and spectacular urban skyline to boast about? Concentrated pockets of these tower installations throughout the city could just sum up to achieve this improbable feat today.
The first tower is to be opened by September the 4th of 2015.
This venture is up on kickstarters.com modestly looking for backers to realize this into fruition. And the backers get to take a way a souvenir, compressed smog free ring/cuff links supporting the cleaning of 1000 m3 that stands a testimony that they were part of a drive that enabled a city to breathe fresh air anew. As he says; “It may be a jewel made of pollution, but it’s one that’s pure at heart.” Ain’t it Indeed? 
By: Achyuthan Ramaswamy
