{"id":56422,"date":"2017-12-05T23:43:47","date_gmt":"2017-12-06T04:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hyperallergic.com\/391708\/smog-inhaling-bike-to-cruise-the-beijing-streets\/"},"modified":"2024-08-26T16:17:04","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T20:17:04","slug":"a-smog-eating-bike-may-soon-cruise-beijings-streets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/2017\/a-smog-eating-bike-may-soon-cruise-beijings-streets\/","title":{"rendered":"A Smog-Eating Bike May Soon Cruise Beijing\u2019s Streets"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Smog
The Smog Free Bicycle concept (courtesy Studio Roosegaarde)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A smog-eating bike may soon be cruising through the Beijing streets. Last month the Dutch design firm\u00a0Studio Roosegaarde\u00a0<\/a>announced that it is\u00a0partnering with Ofo<\/a>, a Chinese bike sharing program, to develop\u00a0the Smog Free Bicycle<\/a>.\u00a0Daan Roosegaarde<\/a>, who leads the studio, stated: \u201cBeijing used to be an iconic bicycle city. We want to bring back the bicycle as a cultural icon of China and as the next step towards smog free cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beijing has an air pollution crisis<\/a>, and the bike proposal joins other environmental initiatives like\u00a0a Chinese government-led mass tree planting<\/a>. According\u00a0to the release<\/a>\u00a0from Studio Roosegaarde, details about the Smog Free Bicycle\u2019s implementation will be released this fall.\u00a0Roosegaarde was inspired by a recent workshop at the\u00a0M Woods<\/a> museum in Beijing. It featured artist Matt Hope, who previously created a\u00a0\u201cBreathing Bike<\/a>,\u201d a much more DIY contraption with an air cleaning system involving an IKEA trash can and fighter-pilot mask.<\/p>\n

\"Smog
Smog Free Bicycle concept map (courtesy Studio Roosegaarde)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Smog Free Bicycle is the latest from Roosegaarde\u2019s ongoing\u00a0Smog Free Project<\/a>. It follows the installation of a\u00a0Smog Free Tower<\/a> in Rotterdam in 2015,\u00a0 reported for Hyperallergic by Claire Voon<\/a>, that was billed as the \u201clargest smog vacuum cleaner in the world.\u201d Using\u00a0positive ionization to pull particulate matter from the air, these particles are then compressed into cubes for jewelry. In 2016, another Smog Free Tower was installed<\/a> in Beijing.<\/p>\n

The bicycle would potentially use a similar technology to inhale pollution, then release the cleaned air around the rider. Yet\u00a0bike sharing programs in China have faced their own hurdles. The\u00a0Guardian<\/em> reported in January<\/a> that hundreds of cycles-for-hire were being abandoned by riders in huge piles around Shenzhen.<\/p>\n

Other recent designs such as the\u00a0CityTree by the Berlin-based Green City Solutions<\/a> that has a wall of air-cleaning moss for concrete-heavy urban zones, and\u00a0Air Ink by Graviky Labs<\/a>\u00a0in India that transforms smog into inks, similarly are aimed at small-scale interventions that could influence larger thinking on greener cities.\u00a0Perhaps it\u2019s better to view projects like the Smog Free Bicycle as statements rather than solutions. Bikes are, by their peddle-powered nature, smog free, and the social impact design may be successful in encouraging more people to ride.<\/p>\n

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Smog at the Forbidden City in Beijing (photo by the author for Hyperallergic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Source: A Smog-Eating Bike May Soon Cruise Beijing\u2019s Streets<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Smog Free Bicycle concept (courtesy Studio Roosegaarde) A smog-eating bike may soon be cruising through the Beijing streets. Last month the Dutch design firm\u00a0Studio Roosegaarde\u00a0announced that it is\u00a0partnering with Ofo, a Chinese bike sharing program, to develop\u00a0the Smog Free Bicycle.\u00a0Daan Roosegaarde, who leads the studio, stated: \u201cBeijing used to be an iconic bicycle city. […]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56423,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[862],"tags":[189,87,294,300,728],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56422"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76559,"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56422\/revisions\/76559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thatgrrl.com\/site\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}