Tag Archives: fan

This flat pack folding fan solves your winter storage and summer heat woes!

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Summertime is here. In fact, going by the raging heatwaves in the northern USA and Canada, this year is set to shatter all temperature records. Living in such sweltering heat, and as someone who starts sneezing after spending an hour in Air Conditioning, a fan is my go-to support system! But what do we do when the summers are over? That is the solution Jinsu Du and Kitae have created for us.

Meet the folding fan, a portable fan that can be folded and stored when not in use. The wireless aspect of the design is a big win in my favor – I hate carrying cables or have them dangling around my space. In fact, the portability of the design makes it perfect for carrying it outside the home, even for camping. The designers paid special attention to the foldability of the design – right from the fans stand to the fan head, you can adjust the fan as you need. This means that, for once, you won’t be adjusting yourself to the fan, the fan will follow you. The designers explain, “We had to contemplate a new type of design in order to effectively capture the structure. The shape, which is largely composed of three parts, has a simple and unique feel. The total color was designed in three colors, but initially white and yellow were released first.”

Sony’s Reon 2 created waves given its personal nature – which kind of makes and is sure to resolve all the thermostat fights. This folding fan is a personal must-have so I can stay as cool as I need to be without suffering from either frozen fingers or overzealous sweating. All the cooling comfort I need without any remote control tussles, this appliance is truly a summer essential!

Designer: Jinsu Du, Jimmy Sungho Park, and Sujin Kim for BOUD

Stay cool this summer in an eco-friendly way with these innovative product designs!

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Summertime means there is excitement in the air, Pina Coladas in our hands, and of course beads of sweat on our forehead! As much as I love and thoroughly enjoy summer, I’m almost always on a mission to beat the heat. And with the pandemic bringing our unhealthy lifestyles and complete disregard of Mother Earth into focus, I try to do this in the most eco-friendly way possible. This collection of super cool and environment-conscious product designs will help you have the best summer, while also taking care of the planet. Have a fun and safe summer!

With summer comes an increase in usage of air conditioners and we know they are not exceptionally healthy for the planet. To help maintain the electricity usage, designers Aileen Ooi and E Ian Siew created an attachment to the common standing fan everyone has stashed away at their homes to make the room cooler. The attachment, named KYL is a humidity filter that funnels airflow output to cool a closed room. KYL would be able to lower temperatures by 1.5degrees Celsius and also make the room arider (a boon in humid places like Singapore, India, and more). Utilizing Bernoulli’s principle to create a cooling effect, KYL comes with a removable filter made up of tiny pieces of silica gel which absorbs moisture from the air. This lowers the humidity in the room and we can reuse the silica gel by washing it then leaving it out in the sun to dry, minimizing the usage of electricity.

A portable, wearable, air conditioner is no more a thing of futuristic TV shows. The Reon Pocket is a smartphone-controlled personal gadget that was designed to be compact and cool. It works using thermoelectric cooling and can cool the user’s body temperature by 13 degrees celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit) and raise your temperature by about 8 degrees Celsius (about 14 degrees Fahrenheit). Reon sits on the base of your neck in a special undershirt designed for it. It uses the Peltier effect which means a temperature difference is created by applying a voltage between two electrodes connected to a sample of semiconductor material. The heat is absorbed or emitted when you pass an electrical current across a junction to either lower your temperature or increase it without bulk or noise.

Boasting an enameled steel construction, the Noori V02 AIRY is a multifunctional outdoor grill, pizza oven, rocket stove, and a fire pit – all in one! Not to mention, it’s probably one of the best-looking grills I’ve seen in a long time, it’ll be the perfect visual accessory to your backyard. The grill consists of six refractory concrete internal plates. These plates + an AIRY cylinder make up the grill’s innovative AIRY system (which also gives the product its name). This basically means that to set up an open fire, you simply need to remove a few refractory plates from within the AIRY cylinder, which instantly exposes the flames, creating the mesmerizing flame dance we all love to watch in an open fire! Much like its predecessor the Noori V02 AIRY also features a pizza disc, allowing you to not only bake up some pizzas but bread as well.

Eisner Design’s renovation pads the children’s basement playscape with cushioning from the floor to the ceiling to ensure rowdy and safe play. From the bookshelf to the tree swings, the designers at Eisner envisioned kids’ imagination and brought it to life. Stenciled between cubbies and bookshelves, Eisner Design lodged cushioned seats that work as hideouts tucked away from the action for when playtime gets too tiring. One shaped into a perfect circle and the other forming the shape of a lima bean, the new seating nooks offer kids their own midday nap destination, à la mom and dad. Rooted just in front of the seating nooks, a modular, cushioned playground is stationed next to an indoor tree trunk that can be used for climbing or as a base during games of tag. It’s the perfect spot for kids to spend their summers!

This beach umbrella comes with an origami-inspired design that unfolds to display a photovoltaic array that generates electric power which gets used for further refrigeration and cooling for the beach people. Measuring 2.5 meters high and a 3.2-meter diameter, this umbrella’s transformation brings to mind the mechanisms we see on the NASA spacecraft. The entire setup can be used individually or be rigged together to generate electricity that can even run an ice cream freezer on the beachside. It’s perfect for a private beach or even a luxury beach resort where these umbrellas can be deployed to keep the machines churning.

Staying cool in the summer can often pose a bit of a challenge, especially when it comes to maintaining a comfortable temperature whilst we are sat at our desks. Whilst there are solutions to this problem already, they often carry an undesirable, unconsidered, and mundane aesthetic that can interrupt the flow of our workspaces. Does this need to be the case? The team at BOUD certainly doesn’t think so, as they’ve created what could possibly be the cutest fan! The compact device features soft-rounded edges and oversized detailing to achieve a rather adorable aesthetic that gives it a friendly persona. But it isn’t ‘just a pretty face’, as it holds a rather clever and desirable feature… it can become handheld! Simply lifting the main section away from the base reveals a handle, this can now be used to provide a more directed stream of cool air.

Weighing 35 pounds, Yeti’s The V Series offers 50% better ice retention than its Tundra. And since the Tundra was as good as a cooler could get, we can assume that the V Series is going to be giving other coolers on the market an even stiffer competition. Sleek, with a retro appeal, the cooler has been equipped with cast-aluminum hinges that are guaranteed to last a lifetime and stainless steel handles. The usual double latches on coolers have been abandoned for a more convenient single center-mounted latch. 1.5 inches thick, it promises to hold 46 cans of beer, assuring you that your beverages will never run out!

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We love the sounds and smells of sizing meat, we hate the clean-up afterward. To keep the ashes from spreading all over your party plans, designers Li Yuan & Zhou Yan have invented the FlameOn Barbecue Grill. It seems like there’s no easy way to remove the ash leftovers in your average charcoal/wood-fire grill. Rather than scoop out the soot or sift it out of the bottom (which inevitably ends up all over your hands and face), the FlameOn Barbecue Grill provides an all-new functionality that eliminates the mess factor. When you’re finished grilling and the device has cooled off, simply unlock the turning mechanism and tilt it on its side. The leftover ash will fall into a removable compartment for easy disposal. Better yet, in this position, it also takes up a smaller footprint than the average backyard barbecue.

Saiga is the result of a team project by the Royal College of Art & Imperial College London, Innovation Design Engineering students – Harry Barber, Kevin Chiam, Wei Haw Huang, and Nacho Vilanova. This wearable neck air conditioner makes use of conduction to cool down the area around the neck using the user’s own breath. So why did these mindful students design a prototype that needs very negligible external battery power? For a simple reason – the air conditioners are energy demanding and adversely affect the environment as they increase the environmental temperature and are also polluting in the long run. How one feels around the neck contributes a lot to the perception of environmental temperature, and the Saiga neck wearable does exactly that.

Nothing says summer is here like a chilled drink and a cactus-themed celebration to support it. Holding your munchies while you sip through the straw, the Cacnuts is a must-have for every green lover.

This minimal fan’s stripped down design is crafted from sustainable materials to last for generations!

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It’s that time of year again– it’s getting hot and the fans are coming out. Finding the right fan for your living space means finding one that’s practical and blends in with the rest of your furniture and architecture. As consumers, we tend to make a lot of stylistic compromises for the sake of practicality, which leads to products getting discarded before they reach obsolescence. Inspired to create a standing fan that’s not white, plastic, and likely to end up on the sidewalk come September, design group Ttato built Aura.

Minimal by conscious design, Aura’s build was stripped down to its bare components: cage, propeller, base, and motor. Built to be a home appliance that can be used throughout the year, Aura was specifically built for optimal functionality. Constructed with materials that were selected for their sustainability, durability, and beauty, Aura exudes a sophisticated air and follows that through with detailed functionality.

Aura’s rotor blades, for instance, were formed from the overlaying and bending of birch and ash veneers, lengthening the rotor blades’ lifespan while celebrating the craft of woodworkers. Then, the aluminum frame is coated with powder and designed to be lightweight and easy to assemble. The three legs of Aura are carved from solid ash wood and can be easily dislodged so that Aura can be transported anywhere. Designed to outlast and redefine our relationships with household furniture, Aura is in it even for the long winter.

Named after the mythical deity that represents ‘the gentle breeze in the early morning,’ Aura was built to move large quantities of air at low speeds. Aura’s built-in controller allows users to choose from five different speeds and outfitted with a swivel and tilt function, users can adjust the direction of airflow as well. During the winter, Aura can be used to move the cooler air from the floor to the ceiling by tilting the fan upwards so the rotor can draw in cool air and the blades can propel the warmer air back down towards the floor.

Designer: Ttato Design

Aura’s minimalist design merges a slim build with a wide area for an elegant addition to any living space.

Aura’s powder-coated aluminum frame is lightweight and durable.

Coming in an array of different colors, Aura has the right look for your space.

By turning the fan upwards, the rotor draws in the cool air and propels the warmer air to the ground.

The 5-speed controller comes with summer and winter modes.

Aura’s 5-speed controller allows users to adjust the strength and mode of the fan’s airflow.

Elegant electric fly-swatter decorates your home with its organic leaf-inspired design

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It’s easy to look past its tennis racquet design and appreciate the fact that it doesn’t have zig-zag lines or lightning bolts on it.

The idea that an electric fly swatter is a pest-control device doesn’t mean it should look dangerous or inelegant. Meet Second White‘s Mosquito Swatter, a graceful little racquet that looks almost like a decorative dried leaf when poised vertically in its dock. However, when you have some cretins to kill, its unassuming design transforms into a weapon against mosquitoes and other bugs.

There isn’t anything functionally different about the Leaf Mosquito Swatter, unless you consider fitting well into modern homes a function. The Leaf Mosquito Swatter deliberately opts for an elegant decor-ish aesthetic as opposed to the industrial design often seen in most traditional mosquito swatters, so much so that it makes form a part of its function. Sure, a swatter’s job is to kill mosquitoes, but just like Philippe Starck’s Dr. Scut Fly Swatter, the Leaf Mosquito Swatter also makes sure its design is something you can show off instead of hiding it somewhere under your bed or behind your side-table. It does its job effectively but also does it elegantly… sort of like the art of Shaolin as compared to just flinging bricks at your enemies.

Hold the Leaf Mosquito Swatter in your hand and it looks like an accessory, not a bug-zapping weapon. This deliberate design direction allows the Leaf to perfectly sit on mantelpieces, counter-tops, and atop coffee tables. When you need, grab the swatter and work your magic, and when you’re done, rest it in its dock and it assumes the appearance of objet d’art.

The Leaf Mosquito Swatter comes with a pretty nifty vertical resting dock that does much more than let you put the swatter on display. Dock the Leaf and switch it from handheld mode into standalone mode and two UV lights kick in, attracting bugs and mosquitoes to the Leaf’s electric mesh. The zapper stays on in this mode, instantly killing mosquitoes without you needing to locate them and wave your hands around.

Ideally, the dock would also serve as a charging hub for the Leaf, but turns out that isn’t the case. To charge your swatter, simply plug a regular USB-C cable into the swatter’s handle and its internal battery begins charging. I guess the lack of a charging feature in the dock is because it allows the dock to be completely wireless, letting you put it anywhere. Given its ability to be used as a hands-free mosquito killer, the dock’s wireless nature actually makes it a bit of a boon, allowing you to take it to any part of the house or even outside during barbecue weekends. Whether it’s indoors or outdoors, the Leaf has a way of looking like simple, sophisticated, contemporary home decor. It uses single solid colors, relying on the veiny leaf pattern to actually serve as the visual element. Minimal yet expressive… not the words you’d normally use to describe an electric fly swatter, but then again, that’s what sets the Leaf apart!

Designer: Second White

This fan hides perfectly within a table!

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Is it a table? Is it a fan? It’s definitely not a table-fan. Well whatever it is, it sure is beautiful!

Every year when summer starts, fan sales surge and we revel in the cool breeze of air that those rotating blades provide. A lot of people have started ditching their air-conditioning units for the adverse effects that they have on climate change compared to fans. The reduction in energy bills is just an added advantage. But as soon as summer is over, these fans start crowding in a corner of our houses gathering dust, occupying space that could be used otherwise. Designer Wonho Lee saw this problem and came up with an ingenious idea of merging two pieces of furniture into a beautiful synthesis which exemplifies form following function in its truest essence. Brise is a fan that doubles up as a table at the same time. The name comes from a movement in ballet (Brisé) which serves as the inspiration for the styling of this product. Of course, we may want to call it Breezé from now onwards.

Lee took an ordinary fan and propped it up on a circular base having radial slits that act as inlets for air suction. But, he didn’t just stop there. The fan blades are safely enclosed within the round body of the table whose top was designed using CFD simulations leaving just enough space for the optimal flow of air. The resultant form is a stunning blend of engineering and organic curves that handsomely serve the purpose while maintaining a distinctive minimalist charm. And the combination of light-colored woods and white, that’s always a classic!

It’s no wonder that this design has garnered him various awards including the Red Dot Design Award 2020, A’Design Silver Award 2020, Spark Design Platinum Award 2020, and K-Design Award 2020. A truly first of its kind, this design brings together two classic products without compromising on either’s characteristics.

Designer: Wonho Lee

CFD 1 CFD 2 CFD 3

Brise 1

Brise 2

Brise 3

Brise 4

This IKEA award-winning fan attachment is the eco-friendly way to stay cool this summer!

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One of the critical reasons people did not act against global warming is because of human nature – to stop the effect would require a complete change in our everyday practices. Now when the threat is tangible and visible, like COVID-19 – yes, the entire world accepted a new world order diligently. But the global warming changes happen slowly, and it will be too late for any saving grace at this rate. So what can we do? Small changes are the key!

With summer comes an increase in usage of air conditioners and we know they are not exceptionally healthy for the planet. To help maintain the electricity usage, designers Aileen Ooi and E Ian Siew created an attachment to the common standing fan everyone has stashed away at their homes to make the room cooler. The attachment, named KYL is a humidity filter that funnels airflow output to cool a closed room. KYL would be able to lower temperatures by 1.5degrees Celsius and also make the room arider (a boon in humid places like Singapore, India, and more). Utilizing Bernoulli’s principle to create a cooling effect, KYL comes with a removable filter made up of tiny pieces of silica gel which absorbs moisture from the air. This lowers the humidity in the room and we can reuse the silica gel by washing it then leaving it out in the sun to dry, minimizing the usage of electricity. And removing this filter is easy as it comes affixed with velcro.

Aesthetically speaking, KYL does us a favor by covering up out traditional fan design with a modern, slatted look. “In a cylindrical form, KYL is designed with the idea of being clean and simple. The shape of the grill in the front of KYL is designed to maximize the airflow out while also maximizing the funneling effect. Furthermore, the functional concept of having multiple funnels, shaped in triangles is designed to be well blended with the design of the cover. Therefore, from the outsider’s point of view, it is an aesthetically pleasing cover, whereas, when seen from the inside, there will be rows of triangle prisms, which will cause the difference in pressure.” say the designers.

To stay on the environmentally friendly path, KYL is manufactured with polypropylene plastic, and for the straps, leather is used, which will be looped around the grills of the standing fans. The leather allows you to stretch the loops, allowing KYL to fit any fan design! Winner of IKEA Singapore’s young designer award 2018, we see why this design would be a total fit and a hit in existing households. No wonder it was voted people’s choice awards as well!

Designers: Aileen Ooi and E Ian Siew

Make-A-Wish Foundation gets a fan into ‘NBA 2K20’

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It's not unheard of for Make-A-Wish Foundation kids to request tours of their favorite game studios, but when 2K heard that 15-year-old Make-A-Wish recipient William Floyd wanted to visit the NBA 2K headquarters in Novato, California, the company dec...

Artist Makes Giant Jet Engine Ceiling Fan for Rolls-Royce

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A couple of years back, I came across some unique ceiling fans designed to look like the fan blades from a jet engine. Now, the artist behind these awe-inspiring fans is back, and he’s showing off his biggest build yet. Commissioned by jet engine maker Rolls-Royce, this gigantic fan measure an amazing 113 inches in diameter.

Kurt Eldrup of Phighter Images and Aviation Flying Furniture fabricated the fan’s blades to replicate the look of Rolls’ lightweight carbon composite and titanium CTi fan blades, and will ultimately be painted to match the look of the real jet engine (as shown below).

In order to ensure that the fan spins smoothly and in balance, each blade was precision-cut using a CNC waterjet machine. Each of the fan’s 18 blades measures a whopping 45″ long, and there’s a 23″ diameter conical spinner at its center. You can check out a little footage of the fan spinning at a low speed in the video below. Rolls wants it to spin at a fairly slow speed so people can admire its design, but its builder assures us that the motor could be cranked up to about 10 times the speed shown here.

Kurt went so far as to build a custom wall switch for the fan, using aviation-inspired designs and incorporating the iconic Rolls-Royce logo.

The fan is headed to the Rolls-Royce North America headquarters in Reston, Virginia, where it will be permanently installed as the centerpiece of the office.

We’re looking forward to seeing the finished fan once it’s installed. You can check out more of Kurt’s aviation-inspired fans, gifts, decor, and furniture over on his website.