Philippe Fournier_Portfolio_2023

The city of Seoul, South Korea, is plagued by dangerous levels of
air pollution. As the city is constantly growing and changing, city
planners, developers and architects must play a role in solving this
crisis. The Se16 Seoul Clean Air Competition called upon architects
and designers to propose possible strategies.
Our proposal is a 2-tiered, modular, mass-produceable and scalable
facade system designed to clean air pollution on a mass scale by
converting, through a chain of reactions, organic pollitants into
algae biomass and oxygen. The facade system is designed as
an architectural product that can be easily attached to much of
the city’s existing residential buildings as an array of louvres and
panels. The design capitalizes on the fact that much of Seoul’s built
form is comprised of nearly identical soviet-block style residential
typologies which offer a large amount of surface area with which to
attach these panels and thus maximimize their effieiency.
3
2
CAPITALIZING ON THE EXISTING
BUILT FORM OF SEOUL
Our facade system is designed as a pair of supplemental modular
products tailored for mass production and assembly on the city’s definitive
building types. Vast regions of Seoul’s urban fabric are defined by clusters
of identical residential towers such as these shown in the suburb of Gaepodong.
Proliferated on a mass scale, our system would cover a significant
surface area of these towers as new urban “green space”, reducing pollution
levels while simultaneously improving the asethetics of the built environment.
A HORIZONTAL
LOUVRE SYSTEM
takes in CO2 and other organic particulates
to grow algae within a system of water
pipes. The pipes circulate the water and
algae uniformly throughout the system. In
sunnier weather the algae blooms become
more opaque, providing shade for passive
cooling, whereas in cooler tempertaures
the pipes can be emptied to prevent
freezing and allow unabated solar gain.
This map show the green acreage of Seoul if our system was applied to every existing
residential neighborhood of this typology. Light green = existing; Dark green = new.
4 THE ALGAE IS HARVESTED
and can then be sold for a variety of off-site uses, including:
biofuel
further reducing air pollution, by
replacing fossil fuel energy use
sewage treatment
addressing water pollution and
wetland degradation
food
5 SYSTEM PRODUCTIVITY
biomedical/chemical uses
manufacturing medicine,
cosmetics, fertilizers,
biodegradable plastics
Via our system, for every day of average solar exposure, 1m 2 of titanium
dioxide will convert 200m 3 of Nitrous Oxides and 60m 3 of other organic
pollutants into oxygen and algae biomass.
CARBON
BASED
POLLUTION
TITANIUM
DIOXIDE
TREATED
PANELS
H20
CO2
ALGAE
BIOREACTOR
SYSTEM
02
ALGAE BIOMASS
15