A breathable garment has been designed for underwater wear and it has futurists thinking along the lines of a wearable that we actually may need for daily tasks. To what extent would this clothing come in handy if sea levels rise up?
Royal College of Art graduate Jun Kamei has built a working prototype of Amphibio. This is not a fun item for the next Paris runway. Breathable underwater garments could be tomorrow’s functional wearable gill.
By 2100, a temperature rise of 3.2 degrees is predicted to happen, causing a sea level rise affecting more that 30% of the global population and submerging the mega cities situated in the coastal areas.
Jun Kamel developed as a wearable that you put on in order to breathe underwater. Kamel is a Royal College of Art graduate described himself as “a Biomimicry designer with experience in material science research and product designKamei created the gill after studying the bodies of diving insects. Their skin is super hydrophobic, repelling water so greatly that it creates a tiny oxygen barrier between them and the water. This barrier not only keeps them dry, it also acts as a gas exchange, allowing oxygen dissolved in the water to be filtered out, into their bodies.”
So, the garment behaves as gills. The garment has two parts, mask, covering nose and mouth, and gill wearable. The microscopic pores in the material allow air to pass through, but stop any water from penetrating it.
