Students: Yu Haochang, Wang Shu, Xiong Zhekun, Liu Fangshuo
Tutors: Wang Hui
Project: Sub-Breathe
School: School of Architecture, Tsinghua University

This design corresponds to the most concerned topic in China, i.e. to improve air quality via eliminating fine particles (measured by pm2.5) in our atmosphere. By inserting refined public activity rooms along the subway lines of Beijing, each of which acts as a pollutant absorber and a shelter for public activities on foggy days, this design gives a city scale solution to the air pollution problem. Piston effect (commonly known as subway wind, which is a byproduct of trains travelling through narrow tunnels) is utilized as the main source of power for the exchange of air between the above ground surface, the activity rooms, and the subway tunnels. Through these exchange progresses, pollutants in the atmosphere and subway system are absorbed by means of phytoremediation, electrostatic precipitation, and physical filtering. These lung-like sub-breathing processes all happen underground, leaving only a green facade that is dissolved into pavements and parks, yet perceptible to the general public above ground, hence affecting daily life as positively as possible.