During the last decades the world that surrounds us has become more and more influenced by human activity.
Transforming the geology, the climate, the topography, almost 90% of the world’s surface has been anthropogenicly
influenced. The question is? How to live within this sometimes apocalyptic looking conditions? Does development
or economic growth need to mean destruction of the environment? Our purpose is to come up with
new ideas within the given reality we live in. We want to use the waste produced by human activity, to give a new and resilient solution, using it for our means. Appropriation of what exists and transform it to something that could help to change the existing condition. Today one of the biggest causes of mortality in urban areas is due to pollution. According to the WHO, in the last ten years, deaths due to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), mostly attributable to air pollution, amount to as much as 8.2 million of these deaths. Barcelona is one of the cities in Europe with the highest rates of pollution, surpassing the annual average of pollution emissions permitted by the European Union. The fact of being a very dense city results in a very high level of vehicular traffic, the main reason for the high atmospheric contamination.
In order to give answers to the air pollution issue, we first analyzed the existing pollutants in the urban area, at the same time doing a research about their chemical reactions, to understand and see how to remove them from the environment. Of all the existing pollutants chemicals (CO2, etc… ), microelements we decided to pick sulfur dioxide. Through a series of steps, we would get a final pure copper crystal by removing the sulfur dioxide from the air. In order to do so, we generate a system that on the one hand would work as a cleaner and on the other hand work create awareness of the surroundings. We invented an apparatus that will clean the air in a specific location chosen. Our final result in this cleaning process will be small pure copper crystals, that will be exposed in a public area/park, for the people to see them to inform people about the air quality that surrounds them and thus create awareness .
Crystal sample
Crystal sample
Site Plan
Apparatus Diagram
Apparatus 3D
Apparatus 3D
Apparatus
Apparatus Zoom In
Crystal Growth
Crystal Growth
Crystal Growth
Crystal Growth
Crystal Growth
Crystal Growth
Crystal Growth
Copper Crystals is a project of IaaC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
developed at Master in Advanced Architecture, in 2016 by:
Students: Armin Akbari, Valeria Julich, Alp Giray Kose, Antoun Rizk, Maria Sfeir, Iqbal Saleh Nazer Ahmed Yaseen
Faculty: Claudia Pasquero, Carmelo Zappulla, Maria Kuptsova