How Beijing's new French school aims to beat the smog
New French campus in Beijing designed to keep out contaminated air as pollution makes foreigners more wary of living in the capital
The French International School in Beijing has announced an ambitious anti-smog design for its new campus, which is due to be completed by the end of next year.
It joins a growing list of international schools in the capital, including Harrow, that have upgraded their campuses with air-purification systems to cope with choking outbreaks of pollution.
Beijing issued four air pollution alerts last month, including one orange alert, which indicates the second-highest level of air pollution on a four-tier warning system.
The new campus, designed by French architect Jacques Ferrier, aims to provide a healthy environment for pupils and teachers with a ventilation system that pumps filtered and purified air into every classroom and the rest of the building.
Ferrier, who also designed the French pavilion at the Shanghai Expo in 2010, said the classrooms in the new campus would have a higher air pressure than the corridors so polluted air did not get in even if the doors were open.
"[But] the problem of air pollution in Beijing can't be treated by architecture alone," Ferrier said. "It has to be addressed at an urban scale, with cleaner factories, a huge incentive for electric vehicles and better public transport systems."