People who live in urban areas are exposed to all kinds of hazards as they go to work, school, or just living their daily lives. Over the past decades, air quality has become such a big problem and has caused a lot of conditions for city dwellers as it continues to deteriorate, including diseases and disorders and even cancers. As environment activists continue their fight on one end, there also needs to be some other creative solutions to help people breathe healthier air when they’re outdoors.
The Verto Air Purification Tower is one such solution that is currently trying to purify the air in New Delhi’s Sunder Nursery. It’s a large-scale system that is 5.5 meters high and has a multi-directional air purifying feature so that the air within the area it is in will be filtered and become healthier for humans and animals around it. Each tower is made up of five air filtration cubes and is encased within a triangle-shaped shell with a modern design, making it look more like a tall sculpture than an air purifier.
The built-in and energy-efficient fans are able to suck in the surrounding air and then the fine dust filters are able to remove the particulate matter and dust and therefore make it easier for people around to breathe in clean air. It is able to clean 600,000 m3 of air every day as well as reduce nitrogen dioxide levels along the way. The fans are considered energy-efficient since it is able to work based on local air quality conditions, using less energy when pollution levels are low.
If a city is able to get enough public or private support, this is actually a pretty interesting and useful tower to have especially in areas where air quality is pretty bad. The company is looking at mass production of the Verto towers and is even trying to come up with materials to enable it to be flat-packed and easily transported to areas where they are badly needed.
Although many people have only recently become more aware of the quality of the air they breathe, there are plenty more that have constantly been living with worry because of the potential threats hanging in the air. Different people have different types of allergies, but one of the most common can be triggered by invisible particles that enter our noses and lungs. And while it’s relatively easier to control the environment at home with air purifiers, although it isn’t completely foolproof, stepping into public spaces is pretty much a leap of faith for someone with allergies. Now you no longer have to give up the fun things in life with this innovative air purifier that discreetly hangs around your neck, letting you enjoy fresh and clean air wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.
Designer: Annamaria Rennel
Click Here to Buy Now: $74$149 (50% off). Hurry, only 9 left! The exclusive deal is for YD readers only.
Respiray Wear A+ – Effectively reduces airborne allergen particles by 99.9% thanks to its user-replaceable HEPA filters.
There are many ways to fight off airborne allergies these days. Some take medication either before or after exposure, but that is never a feasible or healthy long-term solution. Indoor air purifiers do work, but you need to be close to the machine for it to be really effective. Inside public spaces like cafes or stores, the options are even more limited, and while certain masks do work, they also limit your ability to drink, eat, and breathe freely. Respiray Wear A+ combines the best of both worlds, bringing the effectiveness of an indoor air purifier that still lets your smile shine.
The way it works is so simple you’d be left wondering why no one has capitalized on it before. The curved device hangs a bit below the front of your neck, where it gets out of the way of your face and looks nothing more than a fashionable neckband. Inside, however, the device draws in air, pushes it through a HEPA filter to remove harmful airborne allergens, and then releases the filtered air upward toward your mouth and nose. This, in effect, creates a “safe zone” around your face, leaving you free to breathe clean air without worrying about allergies. The device has been clinically tested and lab-verified to be effective in filtering out 99.9% of these allergens, promising a worry-free breath every time.
There are a small number of wearable air purifiers that make almost the same promises, but the Respiray Wear A+ outshines all of them with its convenience and style. You won’t look ridiculous with parts of your face or head always covered, and it doesn’t get in the way of actions such as talking, drinking, or even eating. Wear A+ leaves you free to enjoy life and smile and let others witness that happiness painted on your face.
Wear A+ also eases your worries about its longevity and usability. A built-in rechargeable battery means you can confidently use it anywhere, and replaceable HEPA filters that last for 3 months mean you can get as much use out of it for years. For only $74, you get the Respiray Wear A+, two HEPA filters, and a washable air filter, freeing you from the fears and anxieties of airborne allergens, leaving you free to enjoy with a bright smile that everyone can see.
Click Here to Buy Now: $74$149 (50% off). Hurry, only 9 left! The exclusive deal is for YD readers only.
CO2 or carbon dioxide is often portrayed as the villain, at least for humans and animals, but it is an essential part of the circle of life. Plants need it to live, and these same plants produce oxygen that we, in turn, need. Air pollution, on the other hand, isn’t so beneficial, and the global state of the environment means there’s an overabundance of unclean air and CO2. The first solution that would probably come to most people’s minds is inventing technology that would magically purify the air. But what if we could actually turn the tables around and use these harmful elements for something good? That’s the idea and process being exposed in a living showroom and bio-design workshop that practically turns air pollution into sustainable products.
Designer: Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto (ecoLogicStudio)
Air purifiers have become trendy these days, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic nearly crippled the world. These devices, however, might be good for humans or even pets, but they have a negative impact on the environment in the long run, particularly because of their carbon footprint. Mother Nature, however, already has its own tiny air purifiers, and not only can we use them to clean the air, but we can also even harvest them to create products that won’t harm the planet in turn.
That’s the proposition that the Otrivin Air Lab interactive exhibit in Londo is trying to present, and it’s roping in visitors not only to observe the process but to actively take part in it. The space is enclosed in a lightweight and reversible timber structure, and one of the walls holds twelve “photobioreactors.” These are tall glass vessels filled with ten liters of living photosynthetic microalgae that absorb CO2 and release oxygen while also producing biomass in the process. Each day, that wall can take in 240g of CO2 and spit out 180g of oxygen as well as 84g of biomass.
Visitors to the lab can take part in the daily harvesting of that biomass product that is then turned into bioplastics, bio-rubbers, and 3D printing filaments. These raw materials can then be used to create biodegradable and sustainable products, like vases and even stools. Some might find it a bit unsettling, but the fact that you are sitting on what is practically CO2 and air pollution should feel empowering. We might not be able to completely eradicate unclean air, but we can at least turn them into something harmless and useful.
The lab is intended to showcase the viability and sustainability of a circular economy, turning air waste into a sellable product that will eventually find its way back to the Earth in a clean and safe manner. And to take it full circle, nasal healthcare company Otrivin, who collaborated on this exhibit, will be using this process to create its Fibonacci NetiPot nasal sprays. Each NetiPot supposedly removes 15g of carbon dioxide from the air, driving home the importance of clean air using a product design to help people breathe better.
When we spend a lot of time indoors and keep the windows closed for air conditioning, we feel cool and comfortable. However, that means we also need air purifying devices to make sure that we’re breathing in healthy air inside our homes. There are several kinds of air-purifying devices out there but they seem to be pretty distinctive and will most likely not blend in with your furniture. This new concept will solve that problem by designing something that looks like part of your decoration.
Designer: Studio Volpi
The Missaglia tiles are square-shaped tiles with rounded corners which you can attach to your walls. More than just tiles to match your aesthetic, they’re actually air purifying devices that can capture pollutants, bacteria, and viruses that are floating around your house. But the advantage as compared to the traditional air purifiers is that it won’t take up any space in your room as you only have to attach it to the wall or any surface you want to place it in.
The tiles have hexagonal-shaped fabric that seems to look like flypaper but for polluting agents instead of insects. The material is called The Breath and basically, it is also able to absorb and eliminate odors from both food as well as cleaning agents. It can act on materials like formaldehyde, allergens, bacteria, and viruses. They did their scientific research so that the concept is not just a design solution but something that may actually work.
Design-wise, this is something that I wouldn’t mind adorning my walls, especially if the air-purifying function actually works. I’ve been looking for something for my place since I have to spend most of my time indoors but the ones in the market are either too large or too expensive. So it would be great to have an alternative like this that can not just make sure I’m breathing in healthy, or at least healthier air.
This design is basically a giant air purifier that meets a bus stop and BOOM, we have a chance at cleaner, greener cities. CAPS 2.0 is a smart bus shelter that filters polluted air, rids it of airborne allergens while killing viruses, bacteria, and fungi within seconds. Designed by Charis NG in collaboration with Sino Inno Lab and Arup, this city air purification system can be swiftly integrated into our new normal. It has been proven to reduce pollution exposure by half, remove 99.95% of PM0.1 airborne allergens, and kill viruses, bacteria, and fungi within seconds!
The first prototype was made in 2015 and then the second-generation system (patented) is now on a mission to protect the city folk with advanced spatial filtration and sanitization technologies. The improvement in air quality will have a direct impact on the health if the city’s residents while also encouraging more people to use public transport because of increased cleanliness around the entire experience. CAPS 2.0 is essentially a purifier that takes the form of a bus shelter so that it can draw in large quantities of surrounding polluted air to work with. It creates an air curtain from the underside of the canopy which shields the people while simultaneously generating air currents within that space to purify the air. The polluted air is internally purified thanks to its dual protection technology, Plascide air sanitizer, and multi-HEPA filters that all work together to removing harmful suspended particles and eliminates coronaviruses.
CAPS 2.0 is a smart city solution that aesthetically fits with urban architecture. It incorporates all the technological innovations in a modern and sleek design like multiple air purification and sanitization systems, real-time display panels, solar panels, and more while also serving as a bus shelter. CAPS 2.0 is a testament to how connecting like-minded partners, designers and developers can accelerate innovative solutions for real-life challenges!
It looks like a vertical planter, but it’s much more than just that. Meet the Respira, an air purifier that uses nature to uplift spaces and cleanse the air around you the old-fashioned and effective way. Apart from giving your interior spaces a nice touch of greenery, Respira also adds additional humidity, evaporative cooling, and naturally absorbs gases and particulate matter to enrich your home with fresh oxygen and clean air.
After 5 years of experience designing some of the largest and most effective ‘living walls’ for companies, corporates, and offices, Mitchell and Dylan of New Earth Solutions decided to focus on the one recurring question they kept getting from their clients – “Can I put these at home?” You see, we spend a major chunk of our time indoors, more so during the pandemic, and that erodes our connection with the great outdoors and nature specifically. Aside from the fact that the air indoors isn’t always as fresh as the air outdoors, there’s also something to be said about how cutting oneself off from nature negatively affects one’s mental health. Respira reimagines and reintroduces that connection with nature. It’s a smaller, more domestic-friendly version of New Earth Solution’s large living wall installations, but is backed by a biophilic design that integrates technology and plants into a symbiotic solution.
The Respira features 13 carefully selected plants known for their ability to purify the air of toxins, VOCs, and pollutants. The plants rest vertically against a front facade, allowing them to look like a living wall that adds a dash of vibrant green to your spaces. Positioned right behind the plants is the air-filtration and hydroponic planting systems that filter the air while keeping your plants flourishing. Air is pulled from the top and passed through a reusable pre-filter that traps any particles. The air then passes through the roots of the plant, and good microbes living in plants’ roots break pollutants down into nutrients that help the plants grow. The Respira’s self-watering hydroponic system allows the plants to flourish without human intervention… in fact, all you need to do is plug the device in, fill the water reservoir every 10-14 days, and add a prepackaged nutrient mix every 6 months. The Respira self-waters, self-lights, and self-purifies while naturally humidifying spaces and regulating the temperature in your room. A simple touch-interface lets you view the time and temperature, while controlling aspects of the Respira like the fan speed, light, and water. If the Respira runs low on water or nutrients, notifications are promptly sent to your smartphone.
The Respira comes in two colors (black and white) and features an online nursery of plants to choose from. Plants get shipped directly to you in biodegradable packaging, or alternatively, you can cultivate your own plant clippings. When assembled, the Respira takes on multiple roles. It naturally purifies your air while uplifting your spaces with greenery. It regulates humidity and temperature, and does it all autonomously with minimal human intervention… and the best part? It never needs a filter replacement and generates absolutely zero waste. Just healthy, oxygenated air!
Respira – The Air Purifying Garden that Takes Care of Itself
Respira is an air purifier that improves the air quality in your home by pulling air through the plant’s root zone where beneficial microorganisms capture and break down toxins from the air, in a process known as biofiltration.
How it Works
Air is actively pulled through the top of the unit, removing dust and large particulate matter before passing through the biologically active root zone. Beneficial organisms within the root zone capture and permanently destroy airborne toxins and chemicals that we would otherwise be breathing. Naturally purified air is then released through the front of the unit.
Beyond air purification, Respira adds additional humidity, evaporative cooling, and a direct connection to nature to improve the comfort of your home. Respira is also IOT enabled, allowing you to connect the system to your home network and monitor plant health and air quality from wherever you are.
We get it – wanting to be in nature with fresh air after being holed up in quarantine for practically an entire year. In quarantine, I’m currently living in a tiny apartment in a city with an AQI that seems to perpetually read, “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” without a car and no want for transportation other than my own two feet. Trust me, I get it. Being locked up for so long can make you feel stir-crazy. To make up for it, I’ve bought more plants and flowers for myself in 2020 than I have my entire life. The team at Respira, experts in commercial living walls quote that 90% of our time is spent indoors. If my math is correct, with stricter stay-at-home orders put in place, then that’s a lot of days. In efforts to keep our indoor spaces feeling open and healthy, Mitchell Cowburn and Dylan Robertson founded the company New Earth Solutions, an Ontario-based firm focused on creating low-energy biophilic design solutions. With New Earth Solutions, they designed Respira, an air-purifying, modular wall garden that takes care of itself.
Respira, “is a hydroponic smart garden that optimizes the plant’s ability to remove indoor pollutants from your home through the science of biofiltration,” as described on the team’s website. Biofiltration is simply a natural form of air purification that takes place when microbes that live near a plant’s roots help recirculate clean air into indoor living spaces. Essentially, toxic air pollutants drift into Respira’s purifying system and an integrated fan pushes that air towards the roots of Respira’s plants, which cleanse the toxic air and turn it into healthy air we can breathe. The whole system comes in either white or black, with a 20W LED grow-light, and is manufactured using sustainably-sourced ABS plastic. Advertised as a garden that takes care of itself, Respira comes equipped with an integrated monitor that manages water temperature, levels, and flow, air temperature, humidity and TVOC levels, and the total amount of dissolved solids present in the plant’s water. If that’s not enough to keep up with the needs of your garden, text alerts can also be set so you can be notified each time one of your plants needs acute attention and Respira’s fully-automated care system allows users to tend to their plants from anywhere. The only responsibilities left for users are filling the water basin every ten days, changing the nutrients every six months, and washing the prefilter every two months. Check it out mom, I can feed my plants miles away from home.
The work that comes with taking care of a Respira plant system is, unsurprisingly, similar to taking care of everyday house plants, but by advertising their “backed-by-science” biofiltration system, Respira attempts to set their design above the rest. Soil biofiltration has garnered a lot of attention in the search for greener air purification models, but it’s still a relatively young technology. Installing biofiltration systems in living spaces can produce cleaner air, but leave it for bigger industrial spaces. The truth is, plant management is easy enough if your living space can accommodate it, and taking the time out to learn how to care for each one of your plants and their specific needs might get you closer to enjoying nature from behind closed doors than responding to a text ever could. Besides, I know of an outdoor nursery that sells ivy for ten bucks a pop and it’s within walking distance.
Surges in design innovation happen with new developments in technology and science – transforming tired and traditional, albeit reliable, designs into timely, artful, and well-defined reinventions. The classic air purification system has a reputation as being a top gadget for designers who hope to change the face of air purification with their own interpretation of the aged machinery. Air purifiers also have a reputation for being bulky and unattractive from a purely aesthetic perspective, making it the ideal, blank canvas for designers to prove their creative chops. Consider them the smartphones of the 90’s – a purely utilitarian device that is yet to grow into its complete user-friendly and aesthetic appeal. That is until the Onda was created.
Joca van der Horst recently showcased his award-winning interpretation of the air purifier, Onda, and he’s managed to produce a textile that cleans the air and is also sure to turn some heads, thanks in part to new scientific development. Through a lot of heavy technological research (especially during the pandemic that rumors say could even be airborne!), it’s been proven that nano-coatings comprised of titanium dioxide and copper oxide help to remove polluted air particles through photoactivity during photosynthesis and pollutant treatment. Using natural light, this special nano-coating silently and invisibly tackles and removes air pollutants. Describing the scientific process, Horst explains the nano-coating development in simpler terms, “When combined with this chemical coating, the textile uses daylight to create a reaction with pollution such as soot and odor, transforming them into harmless water molecules.”
Now that we understand the scientific aspect, let’s look at Horst’s textile design. Onda is a personalized, framed canvas with an abstract, almost concentric, display of artwork that’s used to both help purify the air in any given room and inform users of the room’s air quality. By pressing anywhere on Onda’s fabric, users activate a light beneath the canvas that either pulsates slowly and gently to indicate cleaner air quality or rapidly and irregularly to alert users of air pollution. Using daylight to initiate chemical reactions, Onda applies air purification capabilities to a textile that is both customizable and tangible. Horst primarily hoped to make the process of air purification a more thoughtful and intimate experience for those of us who live or work in areas that require clean air for productivity or for a general sense of peace.
Constructed using wood and fabric, Onda is a piece of textile art that functions as an air purifier. The fabric used to produce Onda has a thin coating of titanium dioxide and copper oxide mixture, which reacts with sunlight to transform air pollution into molecules of water. The design weaved into the textile is also customizable and changeable.
While studying at Eindhoven University of Technology, Joca van der Horst stumbled upon a nano-coating that cleans and purifies air through a silent and invisible process. This discovery prompted the young designer to bring air purification to the world of textiles.
Users can momentarily boost air purification by pressing and holding the piece, lighting the frame to emit ultraviolet light, the most efficient method of rapid air purification,” describes Joca van der Horst. Like checking on the status of our water filters, Onda’s air purification status can be managed and its nano-coating can be renewed.
When a room holds air that’s healthy to breathe in, then a light beneath the textile fabric will pulsate slowly, like calm breathing, informing users that the air quality is good or normal.
When a room holds air that is unhealthy to breathe in, then the fabric’s light sends out rapid, stressed bursts of light to signal that the air quality is poor.
“As both nanoparticles and air are invisible, I used lights as a metaphor for what is happening,” tells Van der Horst. By turning air quality into something that we can both visually and emotionally understand, Onda offers a refreshing take on the air purification system, bringing intimacy and subtle elegance to a process that perhaps only a few of us intricately comprehend, so that we can learn from and touch it with our own two hands.
People are now more self-aware than ever about hygiene. In many ways, the global pandemic has served as a wake-up call for all us to make necessary changes in our lifestyle for better health. From simple habits to gadgets like air purifiers, these changes should stick in our daily routines even after the situation calms down. The first step to better health always starts at home and we usually don’t think about things like the air quality surrounding us unless there is a crisis. Devices like the Awair air quality tracker are here to make our homes a little more pure and safe.
We may not know this but, indoor air can be 5x more polluted than outside as we are constantly exposed to factors like paint, furniture, carpet, air fresheners, toys, and more. The air quality can have a major influence on allergies, asthma, focus, sleep quality, skin health, and overall well-being apart from just physical health. The Awair 2nd-edition air quality monitor can track it all for you and even give you personalized recommendations to improve the air in your space. The smart device records the 5 most important factors that affect your health like fine dust, chemicals, CO2, humidity, and temperature to give you a report straight on your phone with changes we can make to up the quality.
The Awair Score is a color-coded scale that lets you know the quality of your air and what changes you must make to improve it. The scale is from 0 to 100 with 0 being poor air quality and 100 being very healthy. It is compatible with smart home devices like Ecobee, Google Home and Alexa so it seamlessly integrates itself in your ecosystem. You can control it via voice commands or an app on your phone when you aren’t home. Even the physical monitor is designed to match all interior styles with its wood frame and subtle silver interface. If you wouldn’t drink dirty water then why breathe dirty air?
So… Can a chandelier save the earth? Yes it most certainly can! This strangely green looking chandelier styled to fit comfortably into any Wes Anderson movie can actually purify air. How, you ask? Each appropriately designed leaf-shaped module comprises micro-algae that when exposed to light, become active and cleanse the air of excess carbon dioxide.
Titled Exhale, the bionic chandelier explores applications of biotechnology in our day to day lives to improve quality of living. The algae within the leaves mimic the action of the leaf by absorbing CO2 and release O2 in the process. Each petal contains green algae, sustained by a drip-feed of nutrients and water, and lit by LED lights… resulting in a light fixture that illuminates, beautifies, and purifies the space!