About this project
The Smog Free Tower
€113,153
1,577
We humans have created machines to enhance ourselves, we invented the wheel and cars to liberate ourselves and travel. But now these machines are striking back, making air extremely polluted in high-density cities. In some cities, this pollution is visible. In others, air pollutants and smog may be invisible, but the impact on our daily lives and health is very real. We believe we should do more, not less, and make modern cities livable again.
This is why we are building the Smog Free Tower, the largest air-purifier in the world. The Smog Free Tower creates smog free air zones in the largest and most polluted cities around the world. The Smog Free tower allows people to breathe and experience what clean air in a city really means. In this project we combine high-tech science, design and imagination, and we can only create it with you!
The aim of this project is to make smog more tangible to people and to reduce waste. So what do we do with the smog we accumulate? By compressing the filtered smog particles, we can create awesome and unique jewelry. Each Smog Free Cube literally contains the smog out of 1000 cubic meters of air! It’s a beautiful way of carrying the message of this project with you and perceiving the tangible environmental impact you’ve made by supporting this project.
The Smog Free Tower is the first step of the Smog Free Movement: our dream of a clean future in which people work together to stop pollution. We believe that the Smog Free Tower provides a unique opportunity to get people to understand the issue of air pollution through direct experience. The bubble of clean air that the Smog Free Tower generates will be a place that brings people together to work and think about how we can free our cities of smog. Let’s kick start the Smog Free Movement and build the Smog Free Tower together!
We've been working on the development of the Smog Free Tower for three years now. The idea for the Smog Free Tower arose during a visit to Beijing, where we experienced the effect smog has on our daily lives. We developed a working indoor prototype and now it is time to expand our scope and build the first outdoor Smog Free Tower.
This campaign is to fund the first pilot of the Tower in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The tower will travel around the world, from city to city. From Beijing to Paris. From Los Angeles to Mexico City. The tower lets citizens experience the value of breathing clean air. The Smog Free Tower is the first step in working together to free cities permanently of smog. Together we can fight air pollution.
In areas affected by severe air pollution, the Smog Free Tower will harvest enough smog to produce over 3500 Smog Free Cubes per day. A total of 1 million Smog Free Cubes will be made to support the message of The Smog Free Movement. The Smog Free Cubes are first of all developed to make sure the Smog Free Tower produces no waste. All the smog we collect, is processed into a Smog Free Cube and turned into an exclusive piece of jewelry. The Smog Free Movement stands for a better and cleaner future we can create together. The Smog Free Cubes are the building blocks of that future.
€ 5 - Thank you for joining the smog free movement! We'll keep you updated on the construction of the world's first Smog Free Tower and its impact!
€ 15 - Smog Free Witness - Thank you, you are now an official ambassador of the Smog Free Movement! You make breathing clean air possible. We’ll not only keep you posted on the development of the tower and its impact, but invite you to witness the first time that the tower is put into operation via an exclusive livestream. On September 4th you are invited to join the livestream to see the tower in action for the very first time: the start of the Smog Free Movement!
€50 - the Smog Free Cube is the most tangible symbol of the Smog Free Movement. It is a cube of 8,4 by 8,4 millimeters filled with compressed smog particles. The Cube contains smog filtered from 1000m3 of air. Carry your cube with you as a personal reminder of your efforts to create a world free of smog!
€250 - the Smog Free Ring is made of 316L stainless steel and a Smog Free Cube and are available in the sizes 17 and 18. The Smog Free Cufflinks consist of a Smog Free Cube with bullet back closure. Smog Free Rings and Smog Free Cufflinks contain smog filtered from 1000m3 of air! remind yourself and others of the need to stop pollution wearing your Smog Free Ring or Cufflinks.
€400 - Smog Free Party Package I includes the Smog Free Cube and gives you exclusive access to the Smog Free Party on September 4th - 21.30h in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. At this special evening we celebrate the Smog Free Movement! We have a limited amount of 10 Smog Free Party Packages I available.
€600 - Smog Free Party Package II includes the Smog Free Ring or a pair of Smog Free Cufflinks and gives you exclusive access to the Smog Free Party on September 4th - 21.30h in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. At this special evening we celebrate the Smog Free Movement! We have a limited amount of 10 Smog Free Party Packages II available.
€1500 - You are one of our very special Smog Free VIP’s! You receive a Smog Free Ring or a pair of Smog Free Cufflinks and are not only invited to the Smog Free Party on September 4 - 21.30h, but also to the exclusive opening of the Smog Free Tower prior to the party on September 4th. This exclusive reward is available for 5 Smog Free VIP's.
I am Daan Roosegaarde and I love to create interactive designs that explore the dynamic relation between people, technology and space together with my team of designers and engineers. You might know us for interactive projects such as Dune, an interactive landscape that brightens according to the sounds and motion of passing visitors, and Waterlicht, a dream landscape about the power and poetry of water. Studio Roosegaarde works from Rotterdam and Shanghai. Check out our office and previous projects below!
Risks and challenges
The fact that the technique used for the Smog Free Tower thus far has only been used on a small scale (in hospitals etc.) and now will be applied for the first time in public space, has been a challenging part of our overall design process. The technique itself however, is safe and already well-tested on various scales.
In addition, because we have been working on this project for over three years and everything has been extensively tested with models and prototypes, we consider the risks of not being able to deliver a working tower and subsequently the Smog Free Cubes, Rings and Cufflinks fairly low. However, it should be noted that the production of the Smog Free Cubes, Rings and Cufflinks depends on the ability to collect enough smog in the first few months the tower is active from September 2015 onwards. This is something that is partly beyond our control. Therefore the first delivery of rewards is set for December 2015, to allow the tower to filter enough smog out of the air.
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Funding period
- (56 days)