The poor air quality in our cities is currently at the center of the public debate on a healthy living environment and is the spearhead of innovative urban planning and mobility policy making

The so-called 'street canyons' (narrow inner-city roads flanked on both sides by an uninterrupted row of (high) buildings) in particular are well known bottleneck areas in our cities. In these street profiles, air quality is often below European and World Health Organization standards. Both urban design and technological solutions, such as photocatalysts, have proven to be a powerful tool for improving air quality and the general health of residents. However, with regard to air quality in street canyons, there is a fundamental disciplinary schism between environmental and urban design sciences. In order to deal with the spatial distribution of air pollution and the difficulty to introduce technological innovation into urban planning, this research project aims to combine environmental and design sciences. That is why the Urban Development Research Group, DuEL and BioGEM (Engineering Sciences) decided to tackle this urgent challenge together.