The current COVID-19 pandemic has already made us accept a number of changes to the way we live in our house. The omnipresent hand sanitizer, the new cleansing routine when we get home, the widespread adoption of breathing masks. It’s a “new normal” that will stay with us for quite some time, creating new unforeseen needs in our daily lives. Making sure our clothes aren’t carriers for germs, bacteria and viruses is  definitely one of those needs, especially for those who work in a public environment and in strict contact with strangers. 

There is a quick and effective way to disinfect garments: ozone gas. The problem is that the existing solutions are meant for professional environment, and not for our homes. Pura-Case has been designed to cater exactly this need: it’s a battery powered “wardrobe purifier” that you can hang in the closet or in a hallway. It works like this: you hang the clothes inside, you closed the air-tight zipper, then you start the disinfection process via the LED-lit top panel or the companion app on your smartphone. The whole process is safe for the household, as the ozone gas is kept inside by the treated fabric the Pura-Case is made of. The purifier can kill basically all bacteria, viruses and fungi that might hide in the clothes fabric in about one hour. 

The design of a first Pura-Case prototype was commissioned to Carlo Ratti Associati by Scribit, a Turin-based tech startup. The product will be developed in the next few months with funds coming from an upcoming Kickstarter campaign.

“As the entire world adjusts to a new normal in terms of health and hygiene, Pura-Case aims to promote top sanitation standards in the key interface between us and the environment – clothes,” says architect Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, who led the Pura-Case design team: “Pura-Case is an alternative to large-sized devices currently being used in hospitals. It can play a vital role in the post-pandemic world next year as we regain our old social life.”