For those of us who live in buildings or spaces with air-conditioning, there is the tendency to keep the windows closed especially during hot weather. But one of the things that the pandemic has taught us is that there is a need to have free-flowing air around us and so we need to crack open that window every once in a while or at least have an air purifier in your house to make sure that the air you’re breathing is still pure. This concept design has turned this device into part of your room decoration and also into a “planterior” air purifier.
Designer: Yunho Kim
The usual air purifier is really more functional as its main purpose is really to do as its name says. But this concept design for the Blow “planterior” air purifier was born out of the desire to make the space where the device is placed not become just a “dead space” where the purifier is just standing there. The inspiration for the design itself are the windows that some of us don’t want to open anymore, either because of heat, humidity, and other health-related reasons. The idea also was added for the commonplace “button” to not just become a mechanical solution.
The Blow design mimics that of a window, or particularly the venetian blinds but this time it’s left to right and vice versa rather than up and down. When you slide the handle, the cover on the front slowly opens and in turn, also turns on the air purifier. How strong the flow becomes depends on the degree that you operate the handle. So it mimics the natural wind that we feel when opening a window and how much wind comes in depending on how much that window is opened. The air is purified through a filter and then discharged through that window frame. The carbon and HEPA filters are easily replaceable to ensure that you’re really breathing in purified air.
The Blow air purifier is also designed so you can place plants on the “windowsill” and give it not just purified air but also lighting through its LED lights at the top. It looks like how you’d place plants on an actual windowsill so you can “grow” them better even if it’s far from an actual window and sunlight. Of course, plant experts would say that natural is still better but this is the next best thing if there’s no area to give them natural light and air.
You can place this air purifier in three different ways in your room. You can use it with leg stands and place anywhere in your living room or office space or you can put it on a table or the floor directly without the stands. You can also hang it on a wall using brackets, giving it more of a windowsill vibes. It’s definitely better designed and more functional than most air purifiers so it’s something a condo-dweller like me can consider.
