VERTO - 360° Air Purification Tower

Global air crisis
More than 99% of people living in urban areas are exposed to air quality levels that exceed the World Health Organization (WHO) limits. Air pollution has become a serious health issue across the globe. As urban air quality declines, the risk of stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, and chronic and acute respiratory diseases, including asthma, increases for the people who live in them.

VERTO is a 360-degree multi-directional air purification tower with the ability to clean 600000 cubic meters of air per day. The name VERTO is derived from the word "turn". The tower rotates as it rises and also transforms the environment by turning polluted air into clean air. The first VERTO was inaugurated on the 26th of August in Sunder Nursery Park by Dr Philip Ackermann (German Ambassador to India & Bhutan).

Design development and CFD
VERTO has been designed using the principals of aerodynamics, to create a form that propagates maximum surface area and increased wind speed for a robust and efficient performance.
Simulation studies were conducted to attain minimum resistance and maximum surface area to achieve this optimum design. An elliptical geometry has been designed as the starting point, as this gave us the minimum resistance. The form was further developed by twisting the form, this twist in geometry channels the wind along the surface of the tower in the z direction, thereby exponentially increasing the surface area.
The rotation of the tower was further developed using CFD analysis to ensure that clean air is not getting mixed with unfiltered air being sucked at various levels. A part of the CFD analysis was to ensure a 360 degree purification zone and maximum output of clean air.
The design of the tower consists of a triangulated component, to ensure ease of execution. Each component is tapered in to create a compression of wind and thereby further increasing the air being pushed in. The perforation pattern is designed as a performance driven system with bigger openings at inlet and outlet areas. This Gradient of openings also give the design of Verto a starker helical move accentuated with the perforation pattern.

Air Purification Capability
VERTO can clean about 600,000 cubic meters of air per day, which is equivalent to an area twice the size of a cricket field with a height of 2 meters. The filtration tower is equipped with energy-efficient fans that suck in the ambient air. The air is then filtered to remove fine dust particles (PM2.5, PM10...) and other pollutants from the ambient air sucked in.

Modular and Plug and Play
Verto consists of 4 modules that have been used to create the tower. This modular nature of Verto helps in controlling the master moulds numbers, that are copied per level and then in turn each level is simply moved up and rotated to fit with the level below. In total Verto tower has 5 levels plus half a level at the bottom.
Based on plug and play design, Verto can be shipped in flat pack state and assembled on site with ease due this the modular nature of design.

Materiality
VERTO is designed using GRC panels to ensure a long lasting and sustainable product. It has a two hour fire rating and is tamper and vandalism proof. The detail has been done in such a way that the screws are not visible from the outside, apart from the place where openable panels are required.
Filters are plastic free and can be disposed off as household waste. The entire tower consists of 60 filters that need to be replaced one a year. This filter change is dependent also on the location and pollution levels of the place. It will take 2 people eight hours to change all the filters.

Variable speed and IOT
A control system enables the operation of the filter columns to be adjusted according to demand and thus react to the current air quality. External sensors record air and weather data, which are collected and evaluated in a cloud. This technology has been available since 2018 and has been successfully implemented by German governmental institutions to tackle pollution levels on some of the most polluted traffic segments in rural areas to maintain the strict EU pollution levels. The variable fans operate at 65 db level (measured 1 meter from tower) at peak performance ensuring an ambient noise level in the surroundings. This db level drops down

Design: Studio Symbiosis Architects
Filtration: Mann Hummel
Contractor: VARE - Varunodya Prefab LLP
Structure Consultant: Acecon
Prototype Location: Sunder Nursery Park, New Delhi

PROJECT TEAM STUDIO SYMBIOSIS:
Design: Britta Knobel Gupta, Amit Gupta
Project Lead: Gaurav Lamba, Anjan Mondal
Dewesh Agrawal, Kartik Misra, Nitish Talmale, Sonal Dongre Jain, Gagandeep Singh Virdi, Chinmay Chowdhary, Jitendra Farkade, Keshav Sapra, Pallav Chaudhary

VERTO - 360° Air Purification Tower by Studio Symbiosis in India won the WA Award Cycle 43. Please find below the WA Award poster for this project.