Page 26 - Designing Ways 241

GREEN
DESIGN

container that is edible and can also be
composted together with food waste, thus
minimizing its end of life impact.
As part of the project, the duo explored
compostable and edible materials, and
designed a salad takeaway container
made of wheat husk for the base and PHA
(a bacteria based composite) for the lid.
The base is edible, but most importantly
can be composted as food waste, without
the need of any special infrastructure or
industrial composting facility. The lid is
not edible, but PHA is a material with
properties similar to plastic that can also
be composted without any special facility,
and if the material accidentally went into
the ocean it will fully decompose within
1-3 months, without any microplastic left
behind. The project will officially launch
in August 2021.

www.forestandwhale.com

Singaporean designer Kevin Chiam has His work seeks to observe and question
Kevin Chiam always perceived design as a conversation the world around him, with curiosity
between people and the encompassing about the motivations behind people’s
environment. His philosophy is therefore interactions and behaviour. Chiam’s work
to design with sensitivity such that his explores various mediums, from product,
works are engaging, simple and enjoyable. service, interaction, branding to medical,
spatial and exploratory design.
In 2020, Chiam launched the Airtomo
Air Purification System, a device that
cleans polluted air with dry, atomised
water vapour. Underground air pollution
can be 20 times higher than roadside air.
According to the Financial Times in 2019,
pollution on the London Underground
can be 20 times higher than roadside air.
Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 and 10 are
tiny particles that can enter our lungs
to cause damage - damage equivalent to
smoking a cigarette if you spend just 20
minutes underground. As a commuter
who struggled with asthma, these figures
resonated and Chiam was keen to design
a tool to help alleviate this issue. Inspired
by how nature uses rain to clean air,
Airtomo releases dry, atomised water
vapour to deposit and remove PM 2.5 and
10 through a process called aggregation.
Atomisation is the process of breaking
up bulk liquids into droplets. At the heart of
the technology is an ultrasonic transducer
disc. It vibrates at a high frequency (kHz)
and transfers that mechanical energy to
the body of water in contact. As water

26 Issue 241 • dw