"This is a prototype module of the Active Modular Phytoremediation Wall System, or AMPS, created by the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology. CASE combines the forces of SOM and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to align buildings more closely with nature, and to that end, AMPS capitalizes on plants' ability to clean the air that circulates inside them. By channeling stale air across plants’ best air-purification mechanisms, AMPS reduces buildings’ need to pump in fresh air from outdoors. This invention grows out of NASA research concerning the health of astronaut, and will touch down in the SOM-designed Public Safety Answering Center II call facility in the Bronx later this year."