Hasta La Ideas

London-based designer Selene Sarı has created an air-purifier called Vox Aeris that is also designed to work as a speaker.

The device’s dual-purpose is the result of three modes of operation – a cleaning mode, a listening mode and a Vox mode, which not only plays music but also cleans the air.

Vox Aeris purifies the air via a scientific process called agglomeration, which Sarı, explained is a method where particles group together, “much like how snowballs form”.

The agglomeration process is formed via turbulence, which is produced by a vortex created by the device’s internal fans and also by acoustics, created by low-frequency sounds from its speaker.

These methods push air particles into a recyclable “laser-engraved filter”, which then filters the air.

The dials on the device have a mix of speaker and purifier functions. A screen on the device’s top left displays the current environment’s air quality level and the dials on the bottom control the sound’s tone and volume level.

Vox Aeris can be plugged into the wall but it also has an internal battery that can be used as a portable speaker for outdoor use.

According to Sarı, we spend 90 per cent of our time indoors, which she says can be five times more polluted than outdoor environments.

During her research in developing Vox Aeris, Sarı found that there is a lack of awareness regarding air purification and how that impacts health.

“Temporal discounting for air purification is a significant factor deterring us from cleaning our indoor air,” she said.

“This is because even if our surroundings are filled with unsafe levels of particulate matter, they are completely invisible and their most dangerous effects ranging from Alzheimer’s to cancer typically show themselves in the long term, not immediately.”

Sarı aims to show that improving air quality can be seamlessly integrated into our lives to give us increased control over our health. The designer believes that through the design’s dual use, there is an opportunity to address a much larger audience and give more people a chance to breathe cleaner air.

“My aim is to change the perception we have about indoor air quality: cleaning our air should not be a luxury or a neglected chore, it should be something that is seamlessly integrated into our lives and give us control over the most frequent activity we do each day: breathing,” Sarı said.

“Vox Aeris cleanses the air through sound and music.”

According to Sarı, current air purifying solutions tend to be costly and have filters that are expensive to charge, non-recyclable or have an “unappealing medical device outlook”.

In comparison, Vox Aeris was designed to be affordable and also “engaging and approachable”. According to Sarı, it offers an alternative by using low-cost and recyclable fabric filters.

Other air purification projects featured on Dezeen include a wearable air purifier designed by tech company Respiray to fend off allergens and a set of headphones by Dyson that were designed to be used in urban environments to filter air pollution.

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