RCA School of Architecture ResearchRCA SoA Research

Towers of Winds is an ongoing practice-based architectural research project developing passive evaporative cooling towers as new forms of urban climatic infrastructure for heat-stressed Mediterranean cities. Centred on Athens, the project investigates how architectural prototypes can both transform and sense urban atmospheric conditions, operating simultaneously as cooling devices, environmental research instruments, community-built infrastructures and atmospheric observatories.

The project responds to intensifying urban heat, pollution, energy poverty and climate inequality in Athens. The city’s basin geography, summer heatwaves, atmospheric inversion layers, traffic emissions, shipping pollution, winter biomass burning, Saharan dust and forest-fire smoke create complex interactions between urban heat island and urban pollution island effects. These environmental pressures are unevenly experienced: residents with access to air-conditioning, insulated housing, private transport and cooled workplaces can partially withdraw from extreme heat and pollution, while poorer residents, migrants, outdoor workers, elderly people and those in dense or poorly insulated neighbourhoods face greater exposure and fewer adaptive resources. The project therefore frames urban cooling as a question of climate justice as well as environmental design.

The research asks how passive downdraft evaporative cooling towers might provide low-energy, low-carbon alternatives to conventional air-conditioning while also revealing the atmospheric dynamics of the city. It explores two linked scales: an open-source, kit-of-parts tower of approximately seven metres that could be constructed with communities, schools or neighbourhood groups; and larger towers of approximately twenty-five metres that could be deployed by municipalities as emergency cooling infrastructure during heatwaves. In both cases, the towers are understood not simply as objects, but as climatic interfaces between air, water, fabric, structure, sensors, bodies and urban space.

The 2024 Athens prototype tested the environmental and architectural viability of this approach at full scale. Developed through interdisciplinary collaboration with environmental engineers, structural engineers, fabric researchers and local partners, the prototype used passive evaporative downdraft cooling to produce localised temperature reductions of approximately 8–10°C within around fifteen minutes. The tower also functioned as a research instrument, using sensors to monitor temperature, humidity, airflow and atmospheric conditions before and during operation. In this sense, the prototype was both artifact and experiment: a built climatic device that generated environmental effects while producing knowledge about urban atmospheric systems.

Conceptually, the project draws on Gregory Bateson’s ecological systems thinking, learning levels and account of eco-mental systems. Athens is approached as a semio-ecological entity: a distributed system in which heat, pollution, particulates, airflows, buildings, forests, infrastructures and social inequalities communicate through material differences. The towers are therefore conceived as ecological feedback devices. They do not only mitigate heat; they make heat and pollution perceptible, measurable, discussable and collectively actionable.

The project’s contribution lies in reframing environmental architecture as climatic infrastructure and atmospheric research infrastructure. It advances passive cooling beyond the scale of the building envelope towards public, civic and community-scale urban adaptation. It also connects environmental performance to public pedagogy, citizen science and ecological literacy. Through participatory sensing workshops, community engagement and open documentation, Towers of Winds proposes that cooling infrastructures can become sites of shared environmental learning as well as physical relief.

The research has developed through collaboration with Flora McLean on fabrics and physical modelling, Aran Chadwick and Atelier One on structural engineering, Rosa Schiano-Phan and Juan Vallejo on environmental design, Dimitra Vlami and Rheomode Athens on local coordination, and municipal and international climate-adaptation partners including the Municipality of Athens and UN-Habitat heat officers. It has received support from TU Munich’s Transformation of Urban Landscapes project, the Impact Hub Athens ClimAccelerator programme, the RCA RKE fund, the RCA School of Architecture, RCA Fashion, Atelier One and Rheomode.

As an ongoing research project, Towers of Winds will continue to develop further prototype testing, environmental monitoring, community workshops, open-source construction systems and municipal-scale proposals. Its originality lies in bringing together passive environmental design, climatic infrastructure, ecological semiotics, citizen science, climate justice and Batesonian ecological aesthetics to ask how architecture might help cities learn from, and act within, their changing atmospheres.