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Posts Tagged ‘Daan Roosegaarde’

This Sculpture Fights Smog

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on July 8, 2017| 4 Comments »

Photo: Studio Roosegaarde/flickr
Dutch designer and architect Daan Roosegaarde’s 23 ft. high ‘Smog Free Tower’ removes pollution from the atmosphere.

I wrote recently about a googly-eyed contraption in Baltimore’s harbor that is removing litter — and about the controversy over the relative importance of cleaning up trash vs. stopping it at its source. (See “Mr. Trash Wheel,” here.)

Here is another take. Does creating a sculpture that removes smog from the air we breathe take too much focus away from eliminating smog in the first place? I continue to think that all efforts are important, both for what they accomplish and for the ability to reach more audiences.

Blouin News reports, “Dutch designer and architect Daan Roosegaarde has created a 23 ft. high ‘Smog Free Tower,’ which is the world’s first outdoor air purifier with the ability to suck up smog, filter out pollutant elements and release clean air.

“The tower, resembling a miniature chrome-latticed skyscraper, has been tested in Rotterdam and will soon be installed at public parks in Beijing, a city that suffers from catastrophic levels of smoggy air, writes The New York Times.

“The tower, which can clean up to 30,000 cubic meters of air in an hour, may not bring radical change to a highly polluted city like Beijing but its installation is a symbolic gesture, reminding the society of its responsibility to fight air pollution. The designer will be placing 25 such towers in Beijing’s public parks and plans to introduce the technology in India and Mexico as well, notes RealClear Life.” More here.

I am just realizing I already wrote about another aspect of this project: the smog waste will be turned into diamonds! Read this.

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Turning Smog to Diamonds

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 2, 2016| 4 Comments »

My husband is from Philadelphia and remembers hearing popular lines from a motivational speech in that city, about finding “acres of diamonds” in your own backyard.

“Today, Russell Conwell is best remembered as the founder and first president of Temple University,” says Vimeo. “But in his lifetime, Conwell had a very different claim to fame — that of popular orator.” (A Vimeo video “explores the history of Conwell’s most famous speech, ‘Acres of Diamonds,’ an inspirational message he delivered, by his own estimate, 6,100 times.”)

“Acres of Diamonds” was the first thing I thought of when Kai posted on Facebook about an initiative to turn China’s out-of-control air pollution into diamonds.

Rachel Hallett at the World Economic Forum wrote, “Dutch artist Daan Roosegaarde has come up with an innovative plan to tackle Beijing’s air pollution problem – and in doing so, turn a health hazard into a thing of beauty.

“After a pilot in Rotterdam, the Smog Free Project is coming to China. The project consists of two parts. First, a 7m tall tower sucks up polluted air, and cleans it at a nano-level. Second, the carbon from smog particles is turned into diamonds. Yes, diamonds. …

“Roosegaarde explained … ‘We’ve created environments that none of us want,’ he said. ‘Where children have to stay inside, and where the air around us is a health hazard.’

“The towers suck up polluted air, and clean it, releasing it back into parks and playgrounds. And according to Roosegaarde, these areas are 70-75% cleaner than the rest of the city. …

“The other aspect of the project will see the captured smog transformed into diamonds. 32% of Beijing’s smog is carbon, which under 30 minutes of pressure can be turned into diamonds.”

Can such wonders be? Read more here.

Photo: AP
Smog in Beijing will be turned into diamonds.

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Starry Night Bike Lane

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 7, 2014| 2 Comments »

Liz Stinson writes at Wired magazine about a bike lane in the Netherlands created to evoke Van Gogh’s painting Starry Night.

“If you happen to be near Eindhoven in the Netherlands, you can walk or bike down a glowing path modeled after Van Gogh’s masterpiece. The one kilometer lane is the work of Daan Roosegaarde …

“The Van Gogh-Rooosegaarde bike path (located near where Van Gogh himself lived from 1883-1885) uses a luminescent material that charges during the day and glows at night. These glowing bits look like little pebbles, but they’re actually not rocks at all. Using the smart coating material developed with Dutch infrastructure company Heijmans, Roosegaarde was able to create 50,000 fluorescent ‘rocks’ that he then embedded into wet concrete in a swirling, pointillism pattern reminiscent of Starry Night. …

“The big goal is to make the coating as dynamic as possible—shifting colors, markings or appearing and disappearing altogether—to account for our ever-changing urban spaces. …

“The designer suspects the path’s real draw will change from person to person. ‘Some people will come because they’re interested in safety and energy-friendly landscapes, others will come because they want to experience art and science,’ he says.”

More here.

Photo: Studio Roosegaarde
Daan Roosegaarde created a glowing bike path in the Netherlands based on Vincent van Gogh’s Starry Night.

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Roads That Glow in the Dark

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

You may get a kick out of this BBC story on the intersection of art and engineering.

“Artist Daan Roosegaarde has teamed up with Hans Goris, a manager at a Dutch civil engineering firm with hopes of reinventing highways all over the world.

“They are working on designs that will change with the weather — telling drivers if it’s icy or wet by using high-tech paint that lights up in different temperatures.

“Another of their ideas is to create a road that charges up electric cars as they drive along it.

“Daan Roosegarde said: ‘I was completely amazed that we somehow spend billions on the design of cars but somehow the roads … are still stuck in the Middle Ages.’

“In the past he has designed a dance floor with built-in disco lights powered by dancers’ foot movements.

“They plan to trial their specially designed glow-in-the-dark paint on a strip of road at Brabant, which is near the Dutch border with Belgium, later this year.”

Read more.

Photo of a glow-in-the-dark road: Roosegarde

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