The Dutch, given their tenuous topography, have a special relationship with nature. As Daan Roosegaarde points out: ‘Who lives below sea level? We must be a little crazy for that.’ The nation lives with the constant threat from water, but this has also encouraged a unique capacity for engineering nature. ‘Without design, we would all drown,’ Roosegaarde says, and that proactive relationship with nature is central to his work, a kind of environmental art, often massive in scale.

Last year, he finished one of the most significant projects of his career, the Icoon Afsluitdijk, commissioned by the Dutch government. This three-part design project, part of a restoration programme for the 32km dike built in the 1930s, celebrates the nation’s leading role in hydraulic engineering works while looking ahead at more advanced and energy-efficient technologies.

To Roosegaarde, design should be genuinely life-enhancing. In 2016, his studio brought the Smog Free Tower to China. The 7m-tall smog vacuum cleaner, as much provocation as practical pollution killer, caught the attention of young, progressive Chinese entrepreneurs. Together with Ofo, the leading Chinese bike sharing programme, he developed the Smog Free Bicycle, which is now being tested on the ground – the bike inhales and filters polluted air and returns it clean to the cyclist. Large-scale usage would create a large-scale impact and Roosegaarde insists that smog-free cities are not a distant dream but achievable in the near future.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dresses-shops-sydney | http://www.marieaustralia.com/formal-dress-brisbane-online