Passive Vortex Air Purification Tower
Air to Live
A passive, energy-minimal tower concept that purifies city-scale volumes of air using natural-draft aerodynamics instead of mechanical fans.
Air to Live adapts the hyperbolic natural-draft cooling towers used in thermal power plants to a different purpose: cleaning urban air. Polluted street-level air is drawn into a spiral vortex chamber, passed through electrostatic precipitation to strip PM2.5, PM10, and other particulates, and exhausted at altitude — driven almost entirely by the chimney effect rather than fans. The open research questions are architectural as much as environmental: what tower geometry sustains the strongest natural draft, how vortex aerodynamics affect filtration residence time, and whether the same shaft could be built into the core of a future high-rise instead of standing alone.
What we are exploring
The system is shaped by questions we keep returning to in our research notes. Where answers are speculative, the design is conservative; where the answers are mature, we ship against them.
Why it matters
Projects exist to be measured against outcomes, not against a launch narrative. The studio reviews each project against the standard a regulated enterprise would apply to any operational system.