The future of urban air
This map was created by the Imperial Tech Foresight team to stimulate discussions about the future of air, particularly in major cities.
Pollution-shielding pushchairs
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Researchers from the Global Centre for Clean Air Research at the University of Surrey have concluded a study that claims that babies and young children in prams can be exposed to up to 60% more pollution than adults. The research suggests that putting covers over prams may be beneficial, but did not test this hypothesis.
Instance
An air-shield concept baby stroller promises to protect babies from polluted air.
Links
Algal wallpaper to scrub indoor air
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Microalgae that can purify air, and also produce biofuels.The microalgae consume CO2, which is essential to their growth. As a by-product they release oxygen into the air for us to breathe.
Instance
Symbiont, developed by GID student Andriana Nassou, is a system which harnesses microalgae to purify the air of indoor spaces.
Links
Algae air purifiers and printable pixels: the students designing our future
Street art using pollution-absorbing paint
Timescale: Present
Description
A specially treated material is capable of purifying its surroundings through catalytic oxidation.
Instance
A revolutionary air-cleansing poem has removed more than two tonnes of pollution from the environment as part of a project which could be used to fight pollution in cities across the world. This was the world’s first air-cleansing poem that has removed more than two tons of nitrogen oxide from the environment. It is printed on specially treated material which purifies its surroundings and can potentially help urban areas tackle high levels of pollution. The fabric is also used to make clothing that can de-pollute the air in cities.
Links
Active Noise Control Systems
Timescale: Probable
Description
New devices can combine wireless IoT networks and loudspeaker arrays with noise cancellation. A microphone is placed in the environment that senses sounds and sends them over wireless signals to an open earpiece (i.e. without the need to occlude the ear canal). Since wireless signals travel thousands times faster than an acoustic wave, the earphone can receive the sound information much faster than the actual sound, being able to effectively cancelling it. A similar approach could also be used for free-field noise control, using loudspeakers instead of wearable devices.
Instance
Researchers at the University of Illinois are developing a method to cancel noise without ear-blocking headphones. Researchers at the University of Southampton are developing active noise control systems for enclosed spaces such as airplane fuselage and cars.
Links
University of Illinois researchers develop method to cancel noise without ear-blocking headphones
Li-Fi communications
Timescale: Probable
Description
Li-Fi is a wireless technology that, using the principles of light transmission can transmit multiple gigabits (at speeds that can be up to 100 times faster than Wi-Fi).
Instance
PureLiFi is the first company that provides wireless Li-Fi technology for 5G and beyond.
Links
Broadcasting of electricity through the air
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Wireless electricity is based on a concept called electromagnetic induction, which was discovered by Michael Faraday in 1831 and is based on the principle that electric current flowing through one wire can induce current to flow in another wire, nearby.
Instance
The Wireless Power Lab at Imperial College London works in the field of mid-range wireless power transfer using highly efficient, high frequency power electronics. Vary Gap is a patent-protected wireless power transfer technology which enables easy connectivity without the constraint of close proximity and precise positioning for mid-power portable devices, transport and applications where mechanical connection is difficult or unreliable.
Links
Pheromone dating
Timescale: Probable
Description
Pheromones are used by species to communicate. But pheromones in humans could also be used as unique "odor prints".
Instance
Pheromone parties is a matchmaking experiment based on scent. Smell dating is the first odour dating service. As these are used for dating, there might be an opportunity to use these as identification of individuals.
Links
Clean-air lawsuit on behalf of future generations
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Children are already suing the government over their inaction on climate change. In the future, we might see unborn children suing for the risk they go through during pregnancy.
Instance
In California, kids where suing the US government in court oer climate change. The filed a lawsuit against the US government for their right to clean air, clean water, and a healthy future.
Links
It's a long shot, but these kids are suing the U.S. government over climate change
Socio-economic clean air divide
Timescale: Plausible
Description
There might be an increasing socio-economic clean air divide. Where individuals will have different access to clean air. Will pollution create a stigma amogst those who cannot access clean air?
Instance
Communties with poverty are more at risk of air pollution and poorer countries are also at higher risk than wealthier ones. New hotels and stores tailored to the luxury market are promoting their clean air experience.
Links
Prescription of forest bathing to address illnesses
Timescale: Plausible
Description
The benefits of forest bathing will increasingly be understood and as ar response, it might be prescribed for individuals living in cities.
Instance
Studies have shown that foresight bathing enhances the human immune function, in-terms of NK, perforin, granulysin, and granzymes cells.
Links
Atmospheric water generators
Timescale: Plausible
Description
With the risk of clean water almost as high as clean air, what are the new ways we can harness the composition of air to harness what it alread has.
Instance
ThinAir is a start up that have designed a product that takes water from air, there technology is a highly efficient surface for water condensation. These surfaces can then be integrated as functional components of Atmospheric Water Generators (AWG) to dramatically improve their performance.
Links
Urban Wi-Fi Free zones
Timescale: Plausible
Description
As the awareness of Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity might grow, there could be an encouragement of WiFi and LiFi free zones.
Instance
In France, the legal system ruled that a 39-year-old woman is eligible for nearly $900/month in disability benefits because of her struggles with so-called “electromagnetic hypersensitivity.” Greenbank is a community in the US, where you won't get a trace of a signal, it is a U.S. National Radio Quiet Zone that has no radiation. People move to the city who say they are faced with EHS (Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity).
Precise positioning for accurate monitoring
Timescale: Probable
Description
Ubiquitous navigation systems that combine on-the-ground, air and satellite sensing, would allow monitoring a much wider footprint than current navigations systems and more precise positioning. These systems could then be embedded in other systems such as drones or sensors that monitor, for example toxicity.
Instance
The BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) is China’s second-generation satellite navigation system that will be capable of providing positioning, navigation, and timing services to users on a continuous worldwide basis
Sensorial interventions to influence public mood
Timescale: Probable
Description
Using scents and sounds to influence the public mood and help to mitigate against anti-social behaviour.
Instance
Scent and coloured lights could be used to reduce aggression in city streets, according to a crowd-behaviour expert. LED lamps that can be varied in colour and intensity are already being used in a busy nightlife district in Eindhoven, and the Dutch city is now experimenting with mood-changing aromas that could calm agitated crowds.
Links
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/psychology/experiments/2017/107.html
'Open Air' Movement
Timescale: Probable
Description
As governments are looking very lackluster in their actions against clean air, there is a potential for citizens to use their understanding to drive an agenda of the cleaner air.
Instance
Society is changing towards a peer to peer society that is characterised by a new way to produce things, from software to food to cities to sceintific knowledge. In the Dutch city of Amersfoort the local government needed data about the impacts of climate change on a very local scale and decided to ask a group of interested neighbours to investigate climate change in their communities.
Links
Smog refugees
Timescale: Probable
Description
As air pollution gets increasingly worse in certain areas, we will see an increase of individuals having to migrate their cities in search for clean air.
Instance
Tens of thousands of “smog refugees” have reportedly fled China’s pollution-stricken north after the country was hit by its latest “airpocalyse” forcing almost half a billion people to live under a blanket of toxic fumes.
Links
Memory enhancement during sleep via diffusers
Timescale: Probable
Description
New devices might use the research of tagging memories in sleep to recall ideas and thoughts through the use of sound and scents.
Instance
Neurobiologists at the University of Toronto have identified a mechanism that allows the brain to recreate vivid sensory experiences from memory. Using smell as a model, the findings offer a novel perspective on how the senses are represented in memory, and could explain why the loss of the ability to smell has become recognized as an early symptom of Alzheimer's disease.
Links
https://aeon.co/ideas/how-sound-and-smell-cues-can-enhance-learning-while-you-sleep
Clean air considered a fundamental human right
Timescale: Probable
Description
Inreasingly, clean air is being considered a human right, in the same way that water and sanitation has been known to be.
Instance
Some charities and organisations have been openly critical of the UK government's slow reaction so far to dealing with air pollution and failing to meet EU directive targets for 'safe' pollutant levels. Campaigners have called for a UK network of Clean Air Zones, a ban on the most polluting vehicles, and a new Clean Air Act.
Links
Cognitive decline caused by air pollution
Timescale: Probable
Description
Cities are already worried about talent migration, what happens when the city itselfs impact on the cognitive abilities of their urban talent.
Instance
A study conducted by scientists in London has found a link between dementia and exposure to nitrogen dioxide. Dementia is a general term describing the demise of memory and mental skills that may inhibit someone from performing everyday tasks.
Urban planning to minimise pollution
Timescale: Present
Description
Pollution is redesigning urban planning, with a need for more walking and cycling friendly environments, transit-oriented environments in particular, and generally reducing the space for cars in cities. This can be enabled by technologies such as apps that provide information to travellers, technology to improve efficiencies in public transport etc.
Instance
The ACCENT Project is an innovative tool that aims to support urban energy planning for buildings, providing maps and data to design actions reducing the carbon intensity of the city.
Links
Smog eating buildings
Timescale: Present
Description
Smog buildings incorporate ion technologies to filter huge volumes of air. What might happen when these buildings are filtering air?
Instance
The Smog Free Tower in Rotterdam is intended to be the 'largest purifier in the world' and create a 'cube of smog' from every 1,000 cubic metres of air it cleans.
Links
Waste heat harvesting
Timescale: Present
Description
According to the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA), one third of the industrial energy consumption in the United States is wasted as heat. If we could get even a small portion of it back, we'd be able to decrease power consumption significantly. New technologes and ideas are creating future opportunities for using this wasted heat.
Instance
Thermoelectric materials, is one way to generate electricity from a temperature gradient. But now new ideas are helping look at the thermogalvanic effect to generate electricity. The scientists built a system that allows waste heat to first raise the temperature of a battery. Because of the thermogalvanic effect, the battery can now be charged at a lower voltage than would normally be required. The battery is then allowed to cool down, and at this point its lower temperature allows it to be discharged at a higher voltage, releasing more energy than was put into it through the electric grid. Dr. Fernando Bresme works on this area - computational chemical physics.
Links
Street misting to reduce temperature
Timescale: Present
Description
Temperatures in urban environments is exacerbated by the traffic, by concrete and asphalt and tall buildings traping light at a street level. This results in cities being 10 degrees hotter than their environments. New technologies will need to help manage city living.
Instance
Grey paint that reflects sunlight is being introduced in Los Angeles, helping to lower the temperature on the streets. Additionally, street misting is helping lower temperatures in cities.
Pollution as a business opportunity
Timescale: Present
Description
Cleaning air is starting to create a benefit for the economy, allowing new start-ups and ideas to enter the market.
Instance
In one of the world’s most polluted cities, there’s a futuristic tower that sucks up smog, turns it into clean air, and filters out the smog particles so they can be turned into diamonds. What other more useful things could this create…
Links
https://ideas.ted.com/this-tower-sucks-up-smog-and-turns-it-into-diamonds/
Rising awareness of indoor air quality
Timescale: Present
Description
Awareness of the exposure that takes place in the home is currently very low, but now studies have found that as much as 90% of the day is spent indoors, where levels of air pollution are much higher than outside.
Instance
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found that indoor air can be anywhere from two to five times as polluted as outdoor air. Household air pollution is one of the world’s greatest environmental health risks, according to the World Health Organization. In fact, a 2012 WHO study found that complications from breathing dirty indoor air are responsible for 4.3 million premature deaths each year, mostly in developing countries, where billions of people burn coal or wood to fuel indoor cooking.
Links
Individual noise taxes
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Currently, aviation is being taxed for their noise pollution, but as cities get quieter there might be a need to tax individuals instead.
Instance
Noise tax for airlines could encourage use of quieter aircraft
Auditory cloaking devices
Timescale: Plausible
Description
These devices have the potential to maks sound completely for individuals.
Instance
Using little more than a few perforated sheets of plastic and a staggering amount of number crunching, Duke engineers have demonstrated the world’s first three-dimensional acoustic cloak. The new device reroutes sound waves to create the impression that both the cloak and anything beneath it are not there.
Links
https://pratt.duke.edu/about/news/acoustic-cloaking-device-hides-objects-sound
Addition of fake noise to silent technologies
Timescale: Plausible
Description
As carmakers have included fake noise to their cars, perhaps cities might do the same thing as they go quiet.
Instance
The engine growl in some of America’s best-selling cars and trucks is actually a finely tuned bit of lip-syncing, boosted through special pipes or digitally faked altogether.
CRISPR for auditory augmentation
Timescale: Plausible
Description
As we now are aware of the protein that creates sound, we might be able to augment it, creating super hearing for those willing to augment their bodies.
Instance
Neuroscientists at the University of California have discovered a sound sending protein, TMC1 has been found (in a hair cell in the inner ear) after 35 years of research. These scientists are now working on gene therapy strategies to treat specific mutations in the TMC1 protein and could open new opportunities for hearing problems or even hearing augmentation.
Links
Data monitoring through autonomous acoustic recorders
Timescale: Probable
Description
Current research on acoustic monitoring of ecosystems seems to suggest that a large number of information can be gathered from acoustic sensors, such as number and location of taxa, general healthiness of the flora and fauna, etc. A similar approach could be potentially applied for monitoring pollution or traffic within an urban environment, just by using a simple microphones array, which can be put on a light-pole, rather than having to install complex devices around the street.
Instance
Imperial College London has developed a robust, real-time and autonomous monitoring system for a variety of sensors, with an open, low-cost, networked device.
Links
https://sarabsethi.github.io/autonomous_ecosystem_monitoring/
Open-ear and free-field active noise control
Timescale: Probable
Description
New devices can combine wireless IoT networks and loudspeaker arrays with noise cancellation. A microphone is placed in the environment that senses sounds and sends them over wireless signals to an open earpiece (i.e. without the need to occlude the ear canal). Since wireless signals travel thousands times faster than an acoustic wave, the earphone can receive the sound information much faster than the actual sound, being able to effectively cancelling it. A similar approach could also be used for free-field noise control, using loudspeakers instead of wearable devices.
Instance
Researchers at the University of Illinois are developing a method to cancel noise without ear-blocking headphones. Researchers at the University of Southampton are developing active noise control systems for enclosed spaces such as airplane fuselage and cars.
Links
Silence as a class issue
Timescale: Probable
Description
Further understanding of noise and its impact on humans will lead to a divide in those that have the benefit of quietness and those that don't. Noise exposure has also been linked with cognitive impairment and behavioural issues in children, as well as the more obvious sleep disturbance and hearing damage. Currently, houses on busy roads are often cheaper than those on quiet roads.
Instance
Noise is a pollutant, with well-established effects on multiple aspects of physical and mental health, from cardiovascular disease to depression. The World Health Organization has calculated that at least 1m healthy life-years are lost every year in western European countries because of environmental noise, with cardiovascular disease contributing to the vast majority of these deaths, especially high blood pressure, heart attacks and coronary heart disease.
Links
Silent cities
Timescale: Probable
Description
Self-driving cars and electric vehicles will make the city quieter. Potentially, it could even eliminate the need for sirens and horns. NASA hopes that by 2025, the most-advanced aircraft will be half as loud as they are now.
Instance
By 2100, 84 percent of the world’s estimated 10.8 billion people will likely live in cities. How will cities and megacities handle an increasing noise from cars, constructuon sites, people....?
Links
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-future-will-be-quiet/471489/
Internal noise pollutions due to conversational voice interfaces
Timescale: Probable
Description
As these conversational interfaces include, there may be further noise pollution inside, after the proliferation of these devices.
Instance
Spoken interfaces appear to be emerging as a class of device and service which manufacturers are committed to and people are actually using. Amazon Alexa is an obvious example, but Siri and Google Now are also gaining traction, and Google recently announced Home, its own competitor to Alexa and Siri.
Links
Acoustic meta-materials to silence noise
Timescale: Probable
Description
Meta-materials could help us silence buildings and cities through the use of these novel material applications.
Instance
Hong Kong researchers have created metamaterial no thicker than a ceramic tile, which can block noise across a wide frequency spectrum – meaning both low and high pitched sounds.
Links
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527485.400-latex-could-silence-noisy-neighbours/
Narrowcasting of sound
Timescale: Probable
Description
Narrowcasting is a term that describes delivering information or media to a specific or narrow group of people. This can now be done with sound, letting an individual get the specific message.
Instance
Hushme is a kickstarter project, which is a personal acoustic device that protects speech privacy when speaking on the phone in open space offices and public places. A laser microphone is a surveillance device that uses a laser beam to detect sound vibrations in a distant object. It can be used to eavesdrop with minimal chance of exposure.
Acoustic metamaterials for acoustic insulation
Timescale: Present
Description
Acoustic metamaterials based on plastic and latex are designed to control, direct and manipulate sound. In addition, they can be used to create unidirectional devices that that pass acoustic energy in only one direction (non-reciprocal acoustics), which could be of use for several applications, from acoustic insulation to personal audio playback.
Instance
Hong Kong researchers have developed a metamaterial, no thicker than a ceramic tile, which can block noise across a wide frequency spectrum. Researchers from Durham (North Carolina, US) have designed an approach to create active non-reciprocal acoustic metamaterials.
Links
Quiet road surfaces
Timescale: Present
Description
New types of tarmac create less friction on the road surfaces and thus almost a quite road surface.
Instance
Since autumn 2011 the city of Rotterdam started a project with quiet asphalt that is especially designed for heavy good vehicles. A number of test sections is laid and will be monitored the coming years.
Silent fireworks
Timescale: Present
Description
Silent fireworks are what they sound like, quite light shows, for cities that want to take care of their biodiversity.
Instance
In cities, in risk of wildfire and with worries about impacting the biodiversity, companies are creating new types of fireworks that are silent through the use of drones and light. Los Angeles have started doing this, but there also many more cities that are implementing the same thing.
Crowd-sourced noise pollution maps
Timescale: Present
Description
Noise pollution maps allowing individuals understand the sound in different areas can help with choises of real estate purchasing and others.
Instance
The England Noise Pollution Map viewer helps individuals understand how high the sound volume is for different areas in the city.
Links
Sound ‘seasoning’ of food & drink
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Sound can be a new future seasoning helping to elevate flavours for those experiencing it.
Instance
Sound can enhance the way food is experienced, companies like Project Nourished use VR teamed with scent and sound to create a new type of food experience.
Clean air provided by utility companies
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Air space is being privatised, alongwith many water-ways, potentially this might indicate a future where air is also being outsourced to private investors. Who owns air and what responsibilities wil they have?
Instance
NASA has signed a second space act agreement with Uber Technologies to further explore concepts and technologies related to urban air mobility (UAM) to ensure a safe and efficient system for future air transportation in populated areas. In the UK, most of utilities have been privitised, such as water, wifi, and sewage.
Links
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/01/privatisation-air-breathe-pollution-london
Vaping of fresh air
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Issue of air being too dirty in the cities, so that citizens use new technologies to clean the air to give them feel better before important meetings or critical moments. Vaping technology can be used to inhale air.
Instance
Lifestraw creates safe drinking water through the use of a straw that filtrates the water, it can filter out all of the microbiological contaminates that make water unsafe to drink.
Links
Rain 'bombs' for clean air
Timescale: Plausible
Description
By scrubbing air, you can create more clean city air. Similar to rain the droplets traps and then takes away the pollutants.
Instance
Pluvo have designed futuristic roadside structures to tackle air pollution while acting as an innovative advertising medium. The system, which resembles a large glass chimney, uses “wet-scrubbing” technology which cleans the air in a similar way to rain. The structures draw surrounding air into them, where water droplets attract, collide and combine with pollutants to remove them from the atmosphere.
Links
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/185335/could-these-seven-student-inventions-next/
Open window legislation
Timescale: Probable
Description
Hospitals and other public spaces might need to have an open window legislation to ensure that individuals get fresh air and create a healthier environment.
Instance
Closing windows provides warmth and saves energy, but it also traps in pollutants. It's counterintuitive, but indoor air is often more polluted than outdoor air, even in urban environments. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2016, indoor air quality is one of the top five environmental health concerns.
Windows that separate noise from air
Timescale: Probable
Description
Noise pollution is an increasing health problem that can be solved by soundproofing; however this involved blocking air from circulating.
Instance
A team of two South Korean material scientists has come up with a way out of separating sound from the air and then attenuate it. They have created a double glazed window that stops sound but lets the air pass.
Links
People snacking on fresh air 'shots'
Timescale: Probable
Description
Just like bottled water, premium air is a growing industry. What if you before a meeting had a clean air shot for better productivity?
Instance
Vitality Air has developed commercial bottled air, delivered in canisters with air from remote locations.
Links
Obligatory air filtering for all urban buildings
Timescale: Present
Description
Even in very polluted cities, indoor air quality can be worse than the air outside. As well as PM2.5-heavy air entering homes and offices through open windows or poor insulation, high levels of formaldehyde, carbon dioxide and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) – gases that can be emitted by poor building materials, furniture, paints and adhesives – are an additional concern.
Instance
Shanghai’s latest upscale hotel boasts filtered air typically 10 times cleaner than that outside and in-room pollution monitors. All the air that enters the Cordis Hongqiao is passed through two levels of filtration and continuously cleaned, while double-glazed windows remain closed to seal the fresh air inside.
Links
Pollution sensing jewellery
Timescale: Present
Description
Jewellery that are responsive to air pollution through the way they change either through colour or design, this can allow the wearer to make pollution around them more visually.
Instance
Stefanie Posavec and Miriam Quick, a pair of London data artists, have designed a collection of necklaces and sunglasses that make varying levels of pollution tangible. These are clothes made of a reactive fabric that change colour depending on the quality of the air you are in and alert whenever you are too exposed to air pollution
Links
https://futurism.com/videos/the-shirt-with-a-sixth-sense-for-air-pollution
Air quality activism
Timescale: Present
Description
Increasingly governments are being sued by their citizens for the lack of action in the area of air pollution.
Instance
The organisation ClientEarth, an organisation of environmental actiivist lawyers, has sued the UK Government for failing to tackle air pollution and has won the case. The new ruling will require clean air policies to be overseen by the courts rather than ministers and local officials.
Links
Urban poetry to de-pollute cities
Timescale: Present
Description
A specially treated material is capable of purifying its surroundings through catalytic oxidation.
Instance
A revolutionary air-cleansing poem has removed more than two tons of pollution from the environment as part of a project which could be used to fight pollution in cities across the world. This was the world’s first air-cleansing poem that has removed more than two tons of nitrogen oxide from the environment. It is printed on specially treated material which purifies its surroundings and can potentially help urban areas tackle high levels of pollution. The fabric is also used to make clothing that can de-pollute the air in cities
Links
Pollution absorbing clothing
Timescale: Present
Description
There is a new business in clothing The clothing business is very dirty, there are new ways to offset the pollutants, clothing might have absorbing qualities to address emissions.
Instance
RepAir is a revolutionary project that goes beyond the traditional concept of green fashion. It is not just produced in a way that respects the environment, but it is also acts virtuously and represents an active way of improving the quality of the air we breathe. Extensive studies, including several lab tests based on international standards and chemical analysis on the air, have proved the effectiveness of RepAir: every t-shirt is able to offset the pollution emissions of two cars.
Links
https://futurism.com/videos/the-shirt-with-a-sixth-sense-for-air-pollution
Artificial nose to treat anosmia
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Artificial noses are being created through training neural networks. These are later being incorporated into A bioelectronic nose, an intelligent chemical sensor array system coupled with bio-receptors to identify gases and vapours, resembles mammalian olfaction by which many vertebrates can sniff out volatile organic compounds can give back the sense of smell for those with anosmia.
Instance
Those with anosmia don't have the human risk systems built in, an artificial system for them can help them react to danger only perceived through smells.
Links
Noseplug air filters
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Nose plug filters are being used to combat pollen, pollution, pet allergen, dust or fumes. In cities, these are now frequently seen.
Instance
Nasofilters, won the Indian president's "National Startups Award" last May and was featured in South Korea's 2017 list of "Top 50 technical startups in the world." The Indian device, however, focuses on the country's pressing problem of air pollutants.
Links
Fresh air tourism
Timescale: Plausible
Description
In many large cities, the air is becoming so dirty that people look for ways to escape it into somewhere with clean air. Many travel agencies start to market their holidays as fresh air tourism.
Instance
Chinese search engines have noted record numbers of related searches, such as “where to go,” “wash the lungs” and “forests,’’ with China's largest online travel site Ctrip even releasing a "haze travel list" and a “haze travel” report. Based on booking statistics, the company reckons that December 2016 saw more than 150,000 Chinese travel abroad specifically to escape air pollution, proving that the search for fresh air has become a major push factor in China’s outbound tourism.
Links
Authentic smells movements
Timescale: Plausible
Description
The past year we have seen smell become a branding phenomena, but there is a counter-movement for smells that are authentic and real not synthetic.
Instance
British Airways has diffusers in the bathrooms and a smell for their towels. That way you walk in and you can smell the “British Airways smell.”
Links
Digital scents
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Digital scent technology (or olfactory technology) is the engineering discipline dealing with olfactory representation. It is a technology to sense, transmit and receive scent-enabled digital media.
Instance
In 2014, meat producer Oscar Mayer has created a small iPhone accessory that plugs into the headphone jack and emits the sound and smell of bacon sizzling in the pan on demand to rouse the slumbering.
Links
Taxation of unnatural fragrances
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Fragrance-Free Movements might lead to further individual responsibility of fragrances, and perhaps, this could mean a future where individuals are taxed on their use of chemicals.
Instance
According to a study in 2016, 34.7% of the population report adverse reactions such as migraines, asthma attacks or rashes when exposed to fragrance. The American Lung Association has a sample workplace fragrance free policy in addition to a sample policy on fragrance free schools. The California Department of Public Health also has a fact sheet for employers on fragrance and work-related asthma.
Buildings with scent playlists
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Buildings as part of their branding could have their own scent playlists on different floors to give a varied experience for indviduals.
Instance
Cyrano, a "scent speaker" that uses multiple, interchangeable scent capsules to make your space smell nice. By mixing up different scents, Cyrano creates different "mood medleys," emitting scents one after another to trigger different feelings like relaxation, energy or freedom. Fragrances to help you wake up, wind down or concentrate are emitted at just the right time of day by the Pium smart diffuser, which combines aromatherapy with the internet of things.
Links
https://mashable.com/2016/04/28/cyrano-scent-playlist/?europe=true
Identification of terrorist threats using smell
Timescale: Probable
Description
Terrorist threats could be able to be identified through the use of odour, by using trained neural networks this could be the potential future airport security barrier.
Instance
A trained neural network is considered to be able to start detecting terrorist threats through its use of an olfactory system. Also, nanoparticles can be used to sense TNT explosives by detecting trace amounts in the air.
Links
Google smell maps
Timescale: Probable
Description
Smell maps can provide with an understanding of the olfatory landscape of cities, recording how odors change as cities evolve. It can also allow those more sensitive to understand where they should travel in the city.
Instance
The designer Kate McLean has worked with hundreds of volunteers to identify the odors of cities from Edinburgh to Singapore, and then to map the unique olfactory landscapes, or “smellscapes,”
Links
Fresh air kiosks
Timescale: Probable
Description
Cities globally install fresh air kiosks that allow people to get fresh clean air whenever they need it.
Instance
China's most polluted cities have installed fresh air kiosks for individuals to escape the smog ridden air. These help create clean ai for inivviduals when they need.
Links
Use of nootropics to influence productivity
Timescale: Probable
Description
Different odours have the potential to impact productivity for individuals, what if buildings and the AC was built with scent in mind to enhance the efficiency of workers. Perhaps, this can be done by including nootropics in the air we breathe.
Instance
Nootroo and Nootrobox are two San Francisco nootropics startups that launched last year. Their founders come from the tech scene and their products are squarely aimed at the tech crowd seeking the convenience of not having to build their own combinations.
Links
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/11/hack-yourself-nootropic-drugs-upgrade-mind
Breathable alcohol
Timescale: Probable
Description
Vaping alcohol and making it inhalable is a way to ingest drinks through breathing it rather than drinking it in liquid form. Bars may be built around their inhalable experiences.
Instance
Alcoholic Architecture is a concept developed by Bompas & Parr, featuring a walk-in cloud of breathable cocktail. The installation was an alcoholic weather system for your tongue where meteorology and mixology collided against a canvas of monastic mayhem, referencing the gothic splendour of neighbouring Southwark Cathedral.
Links
http://bompasandparr.com/projects/view/alcoholic-architecture1/
Indoor particulate sensing
Timescale: Probable
Description
New sensors that similiarly to smoke detectors become ubiqituous in the home sensing particulates.
Instance
Air particulates are invisible, but a new generation of indoor air monitors makes it easy to know the air quality instantaneously and take immediate corrective action.
Links
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601609/how-dirty-is-your-air/
'White smells' to mask urban odours
Timescale: Probable
Description
Potential for cities to use white smells to mask bad odours and create less smelly urban areas.
Instance
The Weizmann Institute of Science is working on creating the olfatory equivalent of white noise and white light. Many individuals are negatively impacted by sensorial impact of scents.
Links
Air quality forecasting using HPC
Timescale: Present
Description
Air monitors can be used with HPC to forecast potential increases or decreases in pollution and the possible reasons and consequences.
Instance
The Foobot app educates you on the causes and consequences of your activities and how they affect air quality at each of the monitoring locations in your home. It provides you with real-time readings and charts of each pollutant over a period of time, starting from day one. Now, you’ll be able to identify pollution sources and patterns more easily.
Links
Homes with air quality scores
Timescale: Present
Description
Every new home will be assessed through the property's air quality score. Future Climate Info (FCI) – one of many UK companies that compile environmental reports for solicitors – is the first to include pollution levels as standard, and at no extra cost.
Instance
Homebuyers worried about pollution can now access information on a property’s air quality as part of the conveyancing process.
Artificial noses for disease discovery
Timescale: Present
Description
Artificial noses might be the future of disease discovery. Research has found that scents can pick up diseases such as Parkinsons.
Instance
A study in mice has found that animals who smell other sick companions start smelling a bit sick themselves. This might be because their immune system starts "working" on building defences to face a potential threat. This could have future applications in the use of smell for disease diagnosis.
Links
Nano materials as air purifiers
Timescale: Plausible
Description
There are paints, tiles and cements that can be placed on the facades of buildings to purify the air by using sunlight. These systems are based on the activation of Titanium dioxide (TiO2) by the energy of the UV light. This reaction produces a numer of components that can triggers the degradation of pollutants absorbed onto the catalytic surface.
Instance
A depolluting trial was conducted with Camden Council and Kings College on an exterior wall of the Central St. Martins College of Art and Design. Background data of pollutants in the area were collected for a period of one year prior to a transparent photocatalytic coating being applied to the wall surface (135m2). Italcementi group has produced de-pollution based cements able to reduce NOx levels from 20 to 80%. HYDROTECT technology is a unique self-cleaning protective coating for building materials such as ceramic tiles. When used on outdoor surfaces and exposed to ultraviolet light, either from the sun or an artificial source, HYDROTECT’s active surface generates a reaction that cleans the material surface by decomposing organic and by oxidizing NOx (nitric dioxide) into less harmful substance.
Moss facades turn buildings into air purifiers
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Creating moss facades on buildings can create them into air purifiers. Ultimately, making them healthy and allowing cities to become healthier.
Instance
The CityTree is a four-metre-high vertical garden inhales pollution and exhales fresh air – doing, its creator claims, the work of 275 trees in one per cent of the space. Each holds 1,682 pots of moss which extract particulate matter (PM) – soot, dirt and other pollutants – from the air. Bacteria living on the moss digest PM, and the moss digests the bacteria. Absorbed PM ranges from 0.1 microns wide to ten microns – the smaller particles being the most dangerous, as they can get deep into human lungs and from there enter the bloodstream.
Dark Sky Movement
Timescale: Plausible
Description
We have realised the impact of light on human health and a new Dark Sky Movement might drive the public debate forward in considering less light pollution in the cities.
Instance
The Internaton Dark Sky Association's mission is "to preserve and protect the night time environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting. IDA and related organizations are collating research on light at night's (LAN) effects on human health and ecology as a result of artificial light at night. The hypothesis is that humans have evolved over millennia exposed to roughly equal periods of light and dark. The disruption of this circadian rhythm can cause hormone imbalance in all living organisms. In the last century, artificial lighting has reduced the regular period of darkness and may negatively impact health.
Go-away cloud machines
Timescale: Plausible
Description
When we asked kids about their dreams for the future, they said that they wanted to have go-away cloud machines, to make the weather better.
Instance
Cloud seeding is a type of weather modification that aims to change the amount or type of precipitation that falls from clouds by dispersing substances into the air that serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei, which alter the microphysical processes within the cloud.
Microalgae to purify the air
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Microalgae that can purify air, and also produce biofuels.The microalgae consume CO2, which is essential to their growth. As a by-product they release oxygen into the air for us to breathe.
Instance
Symbiont, developed by GID student Andriana Nassou, is a system which harnesses microalgae to purify the air of indoor spaces.
Links
Artificial photosynthesis or use of CRISPS to increase CO2 absorption of plants
Timescale: Plausible
Description
Creating better productions that allow for a more efficient photosynthesis. This could also move into making inanimate objects create their own artificial photosyntesis.
Instance
Crop efficiency through better capture has been done by both Imperial academics and in India. It is not that well known that in India the loss of food production due to pollutions would feed almost 100 million people. This is because high levels of ozone and fine particles alter the plants’ physiology.
Links
Drone blocking around sensitive spaces
Timescale: Plausible
Description
The new pervasiveness of drones and issues of privacy is seeing an emergence of start-ups focusing on techniques that block drone technologies from near the buildings.
Instance
Germany’s DeDrone, take a less intrusive approach by using a combination of sensors – camera, acoustic, Wi-Fi signal detectors and radio frequency (RF) scanners – to passively monitor drones within designated areas. Singapore’s TeleRadio Engineering uses RF signals in its SkyDroner device to track and control drones and a video feed to confirm targets visually.
Artificial moons to replace street lights
Timescale: Plausible
Description
New coatings can become the basis for artificial moons, reflecting light from the sun using solar panel-like wings, whose angles can be adjusted to concentrate the light on a precise location. These moons can replace streetlight at night.
Instance
The Chinese city of Chengdu is planning to launch an illumination satellite disguised as an artificial moon within the next two years, as a replacement for its street lights.
Real-time pollution modelling
Timescale: Probable
Description
A completely different engineering solution is necessary- this system needs to couple with natural systems, so as not to depend solely on mechanical systems. Air Quality models are an essential part to understand and predict the complex air flows and pollution concentrations at the building, block, borough and city scales.
Instance
The MAGIC Project, which is a collaboration between the Univ of Cambridge, Surrey and Imperial COllege London, is developing a facility consisting of an integrated suite of models and associated management and decision support tools that allow the city design to become its own heating ventilation and cooling HVAC system.
Solar Power generating windows
Timescale: Probable
Description
If buildings used transparent solar cells instead of windows, then these could account for 40 per cent of electricity, provided its used on the 5-7 billion square meters of the glass surface in the UK.
Instance
Michigan State Unoversity created a transparent luminescent solar concentrator that could generate solar energy on any clear surface without affecting the view. Italy-based Glass to Power has raised €2.25 million via crowdfunding to advance its plans for the roll out of an industrial production line for its transparent solar PV windows.
Lasers/Lidar to monitor air quality
Timescale: Probable
Description
The precision of lasers allow us to see the smaller particles, revealing things such as smoke, smog, and aerosols.
Instance
Lidar has been deployed in self-driving cars, weather forecasting, air quality assessments, space missions, atop wind turbines, to measure sea level rise, and after natural disasters to assess infrastructure damage.
Passenger drones
Timescale: Probable
Description
Companies, such as Uber, Nasa and Airbus, and driving new advances for passenger drones, which could potentially become a new transport mode for cities.
Instance
The world’s first passenger drone capable of autonomously carrying a person in the air for 23 minutes was given clearance for testing in Nevada in 2016.
Links
Nano-bionic plants to indicate pollution
Timescale: Probable
Description
Nanobionic plants have embedded nanoparticles in the leaves of the plant, and this allows them to get new functions using the energy metabolism of the plant itself. Currently, they can have the technology to use as dim lights, however, in the future, they might be able to be used as streetlights or to sense environment quality.
Instance
A group of researchers from MIT has developed nanobionic approach to engineer plant function, enhancing the solar energy harnessing and biochemical sensing of chloroplasts.
Proliferation of low-cost sensors
Timescale: Present
Description
The more sensors, the better measurement. Today, many sensors are not fully used in cities, so we will rely on cheaper versions and crowdsourcing to fully understand the level pollution in our cities.
Instance
According to Moore's law and Kurzweil's of accelerating change, we have seen sensors becoming cheaper and smaller. This allows for more cities to become connected by these sensors. But these readings show only a narrow slice of the air, based on a handful of monitors that may not be placed where the worst pollution is. Advances in technology have produced smaller sensors as cheap as $250, meaning that environmental activists, community groups, and curious citizens can map out air pollution around their schools, parks, or backyards.
AR to visualise pollution
Timescale: Present
Description
AR has the potential to become an overlay to the real world, helping citizens access and assess air pollution quality near them and their potential risk.
Instance
The UK-AIR GIS tool has been developed to allow users to freely interact with, analyse and download modelled air pollution data from Defra and the Devolved Administration’s annual assessment of compliance with EU air quality Directives.
Re-forestation of cities
Timescale: Present
Description
New ways to reforest the cities, buildings covered in plants and trees are a solution to fight against smog in highly urbanised and polluted areas.
Instance
In China, there are two Nanjin towers which have been covered in plants which can clean up to two tones of CO2 and make 30 tons of oxygen a year, thanks to 1,100 trees and 2,500 plants.
Micro-wind harvesting
Timescale: Present
Description
Currently, there are many micro winds in our cities, from tube system to people moving around. At the same time, we are at risk of not having electricity due to threats to the grid. There is a potential to harvest these city micro-winds to use for power.
Instance
Moya Power is a wind energy harvesting, flexible sheeting material that is designed to scavenge-off low grade wind energy, which is most abundantly found against existing infrastructure. This involves vibrations and low speed, turbulent winds generating power 24 hours a day, which can be mounted on otherwise unused surfaces, hidden from public view.
Paramedic drones
Timescale: Present
Description
Drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), are already being used in humanitarian response around the world, already used in disasters such a Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and Typhoon Haiyan in 2013.
Instance
SkyEye in the Philippines and CartONG in Haiti are actively training local communities to operate their own UAVs for disaster-preparedness purposes.
Together, the creators examined the effects of urban air on the experience of city dwellers and explored the ways that these could change with the introduction of future technologies and social interventions. The map represents a unique collaboration between researchers, futurists and the Tech Foresight team.
Concept development by Richard Watson, Maria Jeansson and Dr Graciela Sainz de la Fuente with invaluable academic input from Dr Audrey de Nazelle, Dr Marc Stettler, Prof Washington Y Ocheng, Dr Huw Woodward, Dr Greg Jackson, Dr Chris Mazur and Dr David Boyle.
Illustration by Ed Fairburn
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