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The CO2 mirror is a structure that is always in change. It is a complex system, where nature and technology work in a symbiotic relationship to keep the air fresh and the system running.
By planting trees, the structure can absorb CO2 and clean the air. This is happening according to real-time data of the environment. Once a tree reached its peak performance in absorbing, it is harvested.
The base of the structure is a recycling center of the district. Here, plastics, paper and organic waste is collected.
The paper and the organic waste are mixed (40/60) and vermicomposted to fresh soil.
The plastic is sorted and shredded. Combined with the harvested wood, a wood-polymer-compound (WPC) is created. It is transported to the builders and used to grow the structure and strengthen the existing parts

The necessary energy is generated by special photovoltaic cells, so called Grätzel cells. They are based on raspberry color. Grätzel cells have the advantage of not using silicium and filtering the light in a way that doesn’t affect plants.

In between this structure of printed wpc, trees and photovoltaic cells, a net is woven. This net gives humans access to the CO2 mirror. They can hike up like a mountain, choosing between a casual route for a nice walk or an intense climbing route.
They can also rent some of the tree cells and use them for urban gardening, as long as it doesn’t interfer with the tree growth.

The CO2 mirror is located in London. Isle of Dogs, near the Themse. Its a district with many commercial skyscrapers, close to the london center area. The structure aims to equalize the carbon footprint of this district by planting trees.

Therefore, realtime data is collected by air quality sensors from London Air all over the district.
London Air is a network initiated by the King’s College London. It consists of a growing number of lowcost, DIY sensors that collect environmental data. These sensors are installed by a variosity of stakeholders, including private, public and commercial background.
The data is accessed via API and evaluated for the CO2 emissions in the district.

It is used to calculate the current need for the structure to grow.
The growth of the CO2 Mirror is controled by an Agent Based Model (ABM), which is explained in the upper diagram

The ABM environment is based on the centerpoints of a 5x5x5 grid. These points are availavble for the agents to populate. Each kind of tree has a specific maximum age and will be harvested afterwards. The structure that was built for it stays in the environment and is available for a new agent again. The model always trys to fulfil the global demand, if no more trees are needed, there is no reproduction. For reproduction, the agent asks the free tree spaces for the satisfaction level and will choose a reproduction space according to that. It will always search first in the same floor level, then beneath and only if necessary grow in hight.