University of Sheffield shows of a giant poem that cleans the air

How often do you come across a poem that’s dedicated to air that literally helps keep the air clean too? Not once in a blue-moon, right? Well, that’s exactly why University of Sheffield’s recent initiative has left us pleasantly surprised. The University roped in a poem written by English poet Simon Armitage called “In Praise of Air”. The poem was then printed on a 33-foot by 66-foot piece of material coated with titanium dioxide and hung onto the façade of the University building. The material now absorbs pollution created by nearly 20 cars!


This isn’t the first time pollution-absorbing materials have been used in modern architecture. Even the paving in England and the Netherlands uses materials as such. The sheer creativity behind printing a huge poem and having this hung on a building façade however, caught our fancy. Quoting Armitage’s poetry,

“Let air be a major god, its being
And touch, its breast-milk always tilted
To the lips. Both dragonfly and Boeing
Dangle in its see-through nothingness…”

[Via – Autoblog]