French designer Mathieu Lehanneur and Harvard professor David Edwards have launched a filtration system which uses living plants to purify the air indoors.

The air purifier, called ANDREA, was proposed as a concept two years ago (see our previous story) when it featured in MoMA’s exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind.

After two years of development and testing, ANDREA goes on sale in October.

Here's some more information from Mathieu Lehanneur & David Edwards:

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ANDREA, the air purifier that uses indoor plants, designed by Mathieu Lehanneur & David Edwards on sale by October 2009.

Since its outline design two years ago ANDREA has gone thru stringent tests to ensure perfect efficiency, enabling the system to step into the real world.

Its market début could not have come at a better time, with calls last month by consumer watchdog UFC-Que Choisir? that public authorities ban dangerous chemical used in common household products.

The safe-goods whistle-blower pointed out - ahem, cough, splutter, wheeze - that the air we mortals breathe in the places where we live and work can be 5 to 10 times MORE NOXIOUS than what it is out on the street! Heading the XXX death's head list of invisible poisons are glues and plastics that give off formaldehyde particles.

ANDREA is the ideal response to counter domestic pollution, putting a green lung with enhanced capacities to work to filter air and capture toxic particles.

How does it work? Indoor air is cleaned in turn by both the leaves and the roots of the plant housed in the unit. This innovation enables much better de-pollution of indoor air than the ground-breaking tests done by NASA in the 1980s - the starting point for experiments by Mathieu Lehanneur & David Edwards. Curiously, the best-performing plants are quite common. They include Spathiphyllum (spath or peace lily), Dracaena marginata (red-edged dragon tree), Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant) and Aloe vera.

ANDREA is ideal for spaces up to 40 m2 and upkeep is easy since it consists mainly in watering the plant.

At a recommended retail price of 199 dollars, ANDREA is also accessible and looks like becoming a must-buy for autumn 2009. This is design that cleans up design.

Andrea will be sold from october in the United States by Frontgate, Hammacher Schlemmer and Amazon.

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and David Edwards appeared first on Dezeen.

French designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec have designed a modular room-dividing system called Clouds for textile manufacturers Kvadrat.

Clouds consists of textile pieces held together with elastic bands to make free-standing or hanging structures, which can be used to divide space and absorb sound.

The project is a continuation of North Tiles, designed in 2006 by the Bouroullec brothers for Kvadrat's Stockholm showroom.

The Clouds system is available in two fabrics and seven colour combinations; components are sold in packs of eight or twenty-four pieces.

Photographs by Paul Tahon and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec.

Here's some text from Kvadrat:

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Clouds - a new typology

The ground-breaking textile company Kvadrat is now introducing yet another new design that revolutionises the use of textiles. Clouds is not about furniture or curtains. It is an innovation in interior design: a new typology developed by the brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

Textiles making a comeback

Anders Byriel, CEO of Kvadrat, says that the soft textiles are making a comeback in the public space and in private homes. “For many years there has been a trend of using fewer and fewer textiles. Curtains and carpets have vanished, and even our chairs have wicker seats and backs. Interior design has focused on glass, concrete, stone and wood, all of which are attractive yet hard materials. But this trend is turning now as more and more people discover that the soft materials are not just soft to the touch, but also have an aesthetic beauty and significant impact on sound in our rooms. In fact, we have realised in recent years how important the sound level is to our everyday well-being,” says Anders Byriel.

Clouds is an extension of North Tiles, which was developed by Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec for Kvadrat’s showroom in Stockholm in 2006. The task was to create a showroom that could exhibit Kvadrat’s textiles in a way that the textiles were a part of the room. North Tiles is now known for its innovation and special click system - a system that is also found in Clouds, which features a simpler construction and fewer materials for use in the retail market.

“Once in a while I flip through a design or architecture magazine, and I am often scared by all of the cold rooms,” says Ronan Bouroullec. “Therefore, when we got the Kvadrat assignment we wanted to create a design solution that is both soft and welcoming. At the same time, we aimed to design a solution that was so simple and well thought out that it didn’t require expensive workmen, but could be set up by everyday people without having to be polished, adjusted or given additional treatment,” says Ronan Bouroullec.

Democratic and personalised design
Clouds makes it easy, simple and quick to get the soft materials into our rooms, with the exact surface and colour desired by the individual. “The point of Clouds is that we do not have to replace all of the things that are already in our homes. Clouds is an extra and new element that provides the opportunity for personalised design where individuals are the architect, designer and workman. The ingenious click system, combined with a couple of simple screws and strings makes it possible to create anything from a wall to a specific figure and expression to fit one’s taste. Clouds enables all imaginable uses, as it can be hung on walls or from the ceiling, placed on the floor or add colourful liveliness to railings and stairs. In other words, Clouds represents a new typology, or a new interpretation of the use of textiles,” concludes Anders Byriel.

Choose your own materials and colours
Like North Tiles, Clouds comes in Divina and Tempo, and there are seven different colour combinations to choose from that can be combined in innumerable ways. Clouds is sold in packs of 8 or 24 pieces, so it is always easy to change a figure, make a wall higher or create two clouds instead of one in a foyer, as the module system enables maximum flexibility and variation, keeping in the spirit of Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

www.kvadratclouds.com

More Dezeen stories about Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec:

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Papyrus chair

Galerie Kreo

Stitch room

Pol sofa

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