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On most days, a thick blanket of poisonous smog hovers over Beijing. But one day, China's capital could be dotted with domes filled with clean air. Orproject, a London-based architecture and design firm, has devised the Bubbles project, a design that envisions massive, balloon-like structures filled with clean air. The vegetation inside the park would produce clean air for those living inside the buildings on the perimeter of the bubbles, while also providing a smog-free space for residents to spend time in the faux outdoors. Rajat Sodhi, director of Orproject India, spent a year and a half developing the idea with the firm's Beijing team. "The seed of this project was the realisation that in developing countries, especially major cities in India and China, the air quality has crossed unacceptable limits." Mr Sodhi explains. "You really can't step out and be outdoors. You just move from one air-conditioned space to another." The group decided to design the large domes using patterns found in nature. "If you look at the structure of a butterfly wing or that of a leaf, it has a dense pattern that allows the structure to be fairly stable and fairly large but using very little material," Mr Sodhi says. Mixed reactions The skin of the rooftop bubbles would be created from ETFE, an extremely durable, lightweight material that will not decompose over time. Each bubble would be filled with gas, allowing it to float. | 
