Air freshener

Daan Roosegaarde's Smog project is a true example of a smart and social city.

“We should do more, not less, and make modern cities liveable again,” says Daan Roosegaarde, and his Smog project aims to do just this.

Dutch artist, innovator and designer Roosegaarde is developing a safe, energy friendly installation to capture smog and create clean air in high-density cities that are extremely polluted.

For the project, Roosegaarde partnered with ENS Europe and Bob Ursem, experts in nano air cleansers, to create the largest air purifier in the world.

The installation will make use of patented ion technology that creates large holes of clean air, explains the Dutch designer.

Roosegaarde plans to go one step further by collecting smog particles to serve as souvenirs of this world-first project. The SmogRing — which is still in its design phase — will be a simple band mounted with a small clear center stone containing smog particles extracted from Beijing city air. The black dust, which is largely carbon soot from coal, will be configured in a millimeter cube, to symbolise a cubic kilometer of smog that each ring has cleared.

The Smog project installation will be situated in a public park in Beijing, China where people will be able to breathe, and experience clean air for free. 

Watch the Talk with Daan Roosegaarde