Could a Soot Scrubbing Skyscraper Make Your Air Cleaner Obsolete?

Many residents of China have invested in air purifiers in an effort to fight off the country’s ever-thickening smog, however, a proposal from a British-trained architect might just make these little smog fighters a thing of the past.

The Clean Air Tower, a combination skyscraper and air scrubber, has been designed to clear air pollution from whole blocks of blighted cities. According to its designer, architect Alexander Balchin the Tower concept could cleanse 8.5 million cubic metres of clean air per year – enough to provide healthy breathing for inhabitants on one square kilometre of territory.

The futuristic environmental machine is designed to use solar power to force dirty air through scrubber systems similar to those used in power plants and factories to cut down on emissions.

The building’s air cleaning function would work through a hollow “solar chimney” at the core of the tower which would take air in from near the ground, accelerating up through electricity-generating turbines, and then through the scrubber devices before the cleaned air would be released through the top of the building.

Living in an Air Purifier

Beyond its air cleaning functions, Balchin’s design also incorporates space for offices, housing and retail – as well as a few “sky gardens.”

Since the concept is to make the tower from a set of stackable modules, it could be built to any height, with communities adding or removing modules when they need more housing or less office space. The as-yet-unbuilt proposal also is designed to make the individual modules transportable by rail car. This feature should come in handy if Beijing suddenly conquers its smog problem and decides to ship off its excess clean air towers to Shijiazhuang.

Inspired by Northern China’s Blighted Air

Balchin, who lives in China, says that he was inspired to design his giant air purifier by the unhealthy air afflicting much of northern China. During the Beijing marathon last weekend the air quality index, which measures the degree of pollutants in the air, reached 400, causing many runners to don respirators and countless others to abandon the competition. An air quality index reading of over 200 is considered unhealthy, and a level over 300 is considered hazardous.

All images courtesy of Alexander Balchin.