Spirulina as an Underground Air Purifier
URBAN ECOLOGY
YEAR: 2018
Institute: IAAC INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED ARCHITECTURE OF CATALONIA
Professors: Claudia Pasquero, Carmelo Zappulla
Collaborators: Sabrina Naumovski, Hira Zuberi, Amin Ziaie
Glass blowing artist: Agustina Ros
The Anthropocene is not only a period of manmade disruption, It is a moment of self-awareness, in which the human species is becoming conscious of itself as a planetary force. Designing with biology in the Anthropocene age is not only a necessary, it is inevitable. Barcelona along with many other cities signed a Pact to align priorities with the United Nations New Urban Agenda, a road map for more sustainable and humanfriendly cities approved in the III UN-Habitat conference on sustainable urbanization.
This New Agenda makes a concrete call for better urban planning.
Spirulina is well knone for its numerous benefits as a healthy foodsource. Spirulinas ability to purify polluted air is used as an additional advantage for the city dwellersW
LOCATION
PASSING DE GRACIA STATION TUNNEL
The public interior space that the project will take place in Barcelona is the linkway between the metro station of Passeig de Gràcia on the green and yellow lines. This underground corridor was inaugurated on December 22, 1973. The linkway has given the city many reasons to talk about it since it opened to the public around 40 years ago. With its long length of 256 meters, it takes approximately minutes to walk through the tunnel.
BIOLOGY
The primary cause of global warming can be attributed to the rapidly inceasing quantities of CO2 in the atmosphere. The concentration of CO2 in the air was 270 parts per million (ppm) at the time of the Industrial Revolution. Now, it has risen to 350 ppm as a result of an elevated use of fossil fuels. This is equivalent to a 130% increase during about 200 years
If the qantity of CO2 continues to grow at the present pace, the concentration of CO2 would double and the average temperature would rise by 1.5-3.0 degrees by the year 2030. Polluted air contains the poisonous gas compounds sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and carbon monoxide (CO) Spirulina is capable of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen oxide (NOx) and/or sulfur oxide (SOx) in the polluted air and generating oxygenfor our environment, making it an ideal air purifying medium.
DESIGN
PROTOTYP &FABRICATION
