Breeze Way – A Sustainable Concept for Drying Clothes
The BreezeWay clothes drying unit is an innovative concept for people living in shared or high density households. It eliminates the use of electric dryers and provides a convenient, reliable and sustainable alternative for drying clothes.
The development of Breeze Way helped CobaltNiche designer Krista Lindegger win the inaugural Victorian Industrial Design Graduate of the Year, awarded by the Design Institute of Australia.
Electric clothes dryers are among the top energy-users in a home. As the average clothes dryer uses about 875 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, it's a prime target for reducing electricity use, carbon emission and global warming. All the while saving money.
BreezeWay unit is best sited on a communal rooftop terrace. Wind cowls draw in the breeze; and even on rainy days sunlight heats up the glass house to dry clothes very efficiently. Users hang and retrieve their clothes from large pull-out drawers. Mechanical-code door locks secure garments while drying. This is a real carbon-free alternative, which also decreases drying time and is gentler on clothes.
Wind catchers are simple yet surprisingly sophisticated climate control devices. Their principle originates in Persian Gulf cities to ventilate homes. They have been around for millennia and were also used to ventilate early underground mines in Australia, but rarely appear in new construction.
Other environmental issues play a leading role in the choice of material, durability and assembly of the design. The BreezeWay is manufactured from hybrid laminated timber frames, bamboo, recycled aluminum and recycled glass to achieve zero waste and zero emissions. The unit is easy to assemble and all the individual parts are replaceable. Its ability to be flat packed makes it suitable for shipping while less space is used to ship the unit and therefore reducing the carbon emissions and cost per unit.
Although still a concept, if adopted one Breezeway could replace the need of six clothes dryers, which accumulate over 4,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year. This is equivalent to watching your TV every evening for over 40 years.
Now all we need to design is an electricity-free TV….
