In direct response to the 2005 EU Clean Air Strategy, a London- and Berlin-based design firm called Elegant Embellishments has developed "a decorative, three-dimensional architectural tile" that can reduce vehicular air pollution, including nitrous oxide and ground-level ozone. The tiles algorithmically designed and modular in assembly can thus "rapidly improve urban environments in terms of air quality and visual appeal."
According to the company's own recent press release:
The tiles are coated with titanium dioxide (TiO2), a pollution-fighting technology that is activated by ambient daylight. TiO2 is a photo-catalyst already known for its self-cleaning and germicidal qualities; it requires only small amounts of naturally occurring UV light and humidity to effectively reduce air pollutants into harmless amounts of carbon dioxide and water. When positioned near pollution sources, the tiles neutralise NOx and VOCs (volatile organic compounds) directly where they are generated. They transform previously inert urban surfaces into active surfaces, re-appropriate polluted spaces for safer pedestrian use, and invert problem spaces dark, polluted, uninhabitable to benevolent spaces that benefit communities.
The physical design of the tiles is itself meant as a visual provocation; the resulting grid resembles a kind of crystalline ivy, sculpturally attached to the otherwise bare walls of urban downtowns, where it assumes "endless varieties of physical structures."
But the firm's own description says it best:
Using computer generated design methods, EE have developed an alternate system of tiling that combines new visual complexity while maintaining the economy of scale. Derived from a five-fold symmetric pattern, the substrate is a mathematical grid that appears irregular, yet is made of only a few constituent parts.Further, "the new grid produces a seemingly non-repetitive, tiled pattern, resulting in visual randomness," and, though it "resembles an organic growth pattern, the system is still composed with only two modules."
This particular design has the added benefits of being easy to assemble and of massively increasing exposed surface area, thus maximizing the efficiency of the TiO2; it does this "by exposing an increased surface area where sunlight is otherwise limited, and by providing omni-directional reception of light."
Finally, Elegant Embellishments offers its own recommendations for where the grids could be installed. They speculate that the material's eye-catching and asymmetric nature might also provoke public dialogue about the renovation and reclamation of public space for healthy, non-vehicular uses (though why not pave highways and bridges with the stuff if you can?).
However, while admitting open enthusiasm for the project, I also have to admit a bit of cultural skepticism. For me, at least, a stark white, geometric cobweb hanging over the U-Bahn at Eberswalderstrasse might not necessarily inspire a sense of public ownership toward that space. The designers may want this material to "instill a new sense of ownership in disenfranchised areas," for instance, but I think the grid may blend in so thoroughly to its immediate infrastructural surroundings that people, after a few days, may stop even noticing its presence. Others may even challenge the firm's sense of aesthetics, finding these somewhat weird, off-center grids humanistically disconcerting.
Having said that, though, I am excited by other uses for the material, including the creation of much more explicitly artistic and sculptural forms. Reinforced, three-dimensional, even vaguely resembling work by Alexander Calder, the freestanding objects could act as new centers of play (or solitude) within urban plazas. Install some benches, plant some trees, and new, respiratory oases scrubbed of vehicular particulates would result. They'd be wonderful to visit and even something of a tourist draw.
As Elegant Embellishments themselves admit, they hope for the material to become "a recognizable symbol of a safer place to breathe."
Meanwhile, as many readers will no doubt know, much has been made lately about Trafalgar Square's fourth and final plinth, which has stood empty and statueless for 150 years. Empty, that is, until an ongoing and insanely well-publicized, if recently quite controversial design competition called Fourth Plinth began. I mention this simply because the idea of using EE's pollution-reducing grid as an art installation on the fourth plinth like an elevated coral reef at the center of coach and taxi routes could be an absolutely fascinating addition to Trafalgar Square: under the gaze of national history comes a geometric glimpse of the city's green future.
For that matter, of course, a whole series of such installations, standing like totem poles along popular walking routes across the city, could take advantage of lines of sight, pedestrian curiosity, and even historical narrative to transform in the respiratory sense, literally urban space in London.
But I digress. The material is exciting, its possibilities even more so. Like something out of J.G. Ballard's The Crystal World, I hope to see even more of it, taking on different forms and colors, at different scales, spreading organically across the cities of the future.
