The main street of Vallecas, a suburb of Madrid, Spain is becoming an ecologically-sound social center thanks to the building of innovative “Air Trees.”
Conceived by design firm, Ecosistemaurbano (Spanish for “urban ecosystem”), the trees are the winning design for a competition that asked participants to come up with a structure that would “generate social activity and adapt an open space from the bioclimatic point of view.”
Three “Air Trees” are being built. They are cylindrical enclosures made out of recycled gasworks, each with a diameter of about 20 meters. The metal structures have a distinctly urban look, but will be designed to encompass leafy green vegetation. The first Air Tree, already built, has columns of air on the outside and climbing vines on the inside. The interior has four levels and potted trees. The second will gradually be encased in vines on both the exterior and interior surfaces. The third tree will feature vegetation on the outside and a projection wall on the inside. It will also act as a 360-degree theater for public use.
The solar panels on these structures create electricity. This makes the Air Trees self-sufficient, with all excess energy being sold to the local electric company. The designers called their creation “Air Trees” because they are intended to produce oxygen as well.
Since these trees are intended to act as urban hang-outs for the locals, the designers also kept the climate of Madrid in mind. Summer time there can be extremely hot and dry. To make socializing in this heat more bearable, an evaporation and transpiration plant has been devised for the air-conditioning of these open spaces. Water pumped into tanks at the top of the cylinder will be redistributed in the lower layers, where it will be vaporized. The vapor will lower the temperature in these small circular spaces by eight to ten degrees, thus turning them into very pleasantly green places to chill out on a hot summer’s day.
This article was published Monday, January 7, 2008.
