Sponge Mountain is a proposal by architect Angelo Renna for a 90-metre-high mound of soil, which would absorb carbon dioxide from the air in Turin.
Amsterdam-based Renna imagines the artificial mountain being made out of the soil excavated during the construction of a 170-mile railway tunnel, planned between the northern Italian city and Lyon, France.
Sponge Mountain would soak up the carbon dioxide in the air and also provide a new park for Turin
It would passively soak up the carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere by industry and traffic, locking it into the soil so that it no longer contributes to climate change.
Turin's residents would also be able to enjoy it, as it could be planted with trees and have pathways cut into it, to transform it into a city park. Angelo Renna developed the project for SUCCESS, in a project exploring the potential of using soil for carbon capture
Renna developed the concept for SUCCESS, a project run by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funding research into the potential of using soil for carbon capture.
Geoscientists, engineers and ecologists are working with designers to investigate the ways in which soil could be optimised to absorb carbon dioxide in urban environments.

An estimated six million tons of soil is expected to be removed during construction of the railway tunnel. According to the research from SUCCESS, this kind of quarried soil has a high capacity for capturing carbon dioxide.
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