Federica Marrella Cecilia Polonara

With the project Airwal , the team wants to take advatage of sterile and sanitised air flow in such a manner that can create an invisible pod and act as a purified barrier between Covid-19 positive persons and other cohabitants within daily household interactions.
From a technological perspective, the team took inspiration from the operating system of the biological safety cabinets and the cooking hoods; the first ones are intended to protect laboratory workers, laboratory environment and work materials from exposure to infectious and work with HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Air) filters; the second ones are the devices containing a mechanical fan that hangs above the stove or cooktop in the kitchen and are meant to remove airborne grease, combustion products, fumes, smoke, heat from the air by evacuation of the air and filtration. The use of HEPA filters in combination with the kitchen exhaust system results to be the perfect solution for purifing the vertical area of interaction created by two persons talking or sitting at the table to have dinner or lunch together. Indeed, while the hood systems performs excellent suction in extreme silence through the ventilator, the HEPA filters, part of the “absolute filters” so called category, can guarantee a filtration efficiency between 85% and 99.995% .
Airwal system is designed taking into account the physical and mental safety of the users, the infected and the healthy ones, together with the air sterilization of their interaction area. Furthermore, with this solution, the team wants to address the importance of a rediscovered contact and interaction between a Covid-19 positive person and the others cohabitants within daily rituals such as dining together, which can greatly increase pshycological well-being.