Home Pharmacy is a decorative textile wall hanging on the theme of plants with switchable paper sheets that are mixed with peppermint and lavender.
The designer Elena Brebenel developed the project as an interactive tool to raise awareness of improving the air quality of houses.
Home Pharmacy is a textile wall hanging
The wall hanging made of non-woven linen shows the aromatic plants lavender, yarrow, mint and daisies.
Every medicine cabinet contains fragments of paper clippings that are shaped like leaves and petals of plants and that are mixed with peppermint and lavender oils.
With the help of tabs in the paper sheets, the user can insert the fragrant petals.
Users can attach paper cutouts to the decorative textile
Brebenel said she found inspiration for the project on how blue titbirds place fragments of these plants in their nests to protect their young from pathogenic bacteria and parasites.
The wall hanging is designed to be displayed at home and complemented in the same way that blue tits build their nests.
The paper cut-outs are individually wrapped and can be re-infused with essential oils after the oils have evaporated.
The cutouts are individually packed
Brebenel explained that while the project does not improve air quality in a home, it does emulate the behavior of a blue tit with an interactive textile, but that users are beginning to adapt the way they think and act to their own health.
AirBird is a smart sensor that chirps to highlight indoor air pollution
“After researching the issue and identifying the important role that inmate behavior plays in the home, I found that raising awareness is a very efficient way to deal with the problem and can lead to behavior change,” he said Designer.
Indoor air quality can be affected for a number of reasons, such as: B. from oil and gas used in cooking, as well as from household cleaning products and central heating and cooling systems.
The cuttings enriched with essential oils imitate plants
Brebenel worked with bioinspiration, developing novel materials influenced by existing biological systems, and used her own textile practice to create the project.
“As I am a textile designer, the action was influenced by the textile craft technique of weaving.”
“As a result, participants take one of the leaf- or petal-shaped fragments of paper impregnated with essential oils, find out where they are hanging on the wall, and then weave them in,” Brebenel said.
The installation of Pollution Ranger and Smog Shade visualizes air quality data in real time
The medicine cabinet takes a low-tech approach to thinking about air quality while also providing users with a decorative and calming object for their home.
Other current projects to improve air quality include a bird-like intelligent sensor from GXN that chirps to signal poor indoor air conditions, and a portable air quality monitor from design studio NotAnotherOne that can be clipped onto a bag to test local pollution levels.
Elena Brebenel is a designer and researcher whose practice examines the interface between bio-inspiration and textile design. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Textiles at Kent State University in Ohio, America.
The photography is by Cristina Schek.
