The last few posts focused on technology and science in conjunction with art and fashion. One of the posts mentioned Julian Melchiorri's synthetic biological leaf that can absorb water and carbon dioxide and produce oxygen like a plant; as some readers may remember, a few years ago, French architectural practice R&Sie(n) came up instead with the "Dustyrelief / B_mu" project, consisting in covering the building of a Bangkok-based museum with an electromagnetic skin that attracted pollution from the air and turned it into a sort of fur-like cover growing on the exterior of the building, dressing it up. Moving along the same lines - pollution and the production of oxygen in alternative ways - let's look today at the "BB.Suit 0.2".
This project is a collaboration between Borre Akkersdijk of ByBorre, Martijn ten Bhomer from the Eindhoven University of Technology, Eva de Laat, Daan Spangenberg Graphics, StudioFriso and WANT.
The project tackles one key question - how can we preserve the health of people living in polluted urban environments such as China's metropolises?
The creative minds behind this project point out that air pollution is a very complicated matter and the data gathered as background research for the suit highlight that pollution is generated in China at different levels by the textile, electronics, automotive and coal industries. Yet this problem could be at least partially solved through wearable high-tech materials and technologies.
Air can indeed be cleansed through various methods, techniques and filters and, in the case of the BB.Suit, the group employed the Cold Plasma technology (developed by Squair). The latter consists in splitting common molecules into free radicals that are highly reactive against toxic gasses, bacteria, viruses, mold, fungi and dust particles.
Being in conact with the air, clothing would clean the polluted air, while an integrated air quality sensor measures the concentration of Carbon Monoxide, Methane and LPG in the surrounding air, generating location-based data that could be combined to offer researchers a precise analysis of the air quality.
The sensor is an added element compared to the BB.Suit 0.1, originally showcased at SXSW 2014, in Austin, Texas, when, in honour of the music festival, tracks could be uploaded onto the garment (the BB.Suit contains full Wifi and GPS) with the help of online music platform 22tracks.
The suit doesn't only integrate wearable technology, but it also features advanced production techniques such as seamless knitting that guarantees less side-waste.
It would be interesting to see what other features the next version of the suit will look like and, in case, if the technology behind the BB.Suit could be adapted to basic every day outerwear pieces from our wardrobes such as coats and jackets.
Images credits for this post
First image by Daan Spangenberg; all other photgraphs by Benoit Florencon.
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