Originally developed as a competition entry for the Athens Olympics, The Tower of Winds is a sort of mobile tower for cleansing urban polluted air. The massive cooling tower, conceived by Working Architecture Group in conjunction with engineers Atelier One and environmentalengineer Professor Brian Ford of WSP environmental, was supposed to help authorities to host urban street events in a clean way. Each Kevlar fabric tower can be erected in 30 minutes.
The concept towers create an envelope of clean air and thus, eliminate the need for the protective glass cubes for public monuments in question. First helium is pumped into a torus ring. Later, water is pumped up through small veins that are sewn into the fabric of the tower. The liquid oozes out of holes to run down the inside skin. When it evaporates, clean air draws down the inside of the tower, cooling it by up to 12 degrees. The process naturally reverses at night, and warm, polluted air from the surrounding city streets is drawn up the tower and dispersed at high level.
