PROJECT: FLORENCE
We’ve got no use for one-use. These visors protect again and again.
As the health crisis emerged, two pictures were stuck in our heads. The first was exhausted frontline doctors, nurses and key workers with red marks on their faces from heavy, uncomfortable protective equipment. The second was visors and other gear washing up on shores, filling up medical bins and littering streets. We realised we had an opportunity to combat environmental damage and help key workers perform at their best simultaneously by creating a CE-compliant reusable visor which could be produced quickly while keeping users comfortable and safe.
Thanks to the rapid prototyping enabled by Additive Manufacturing, we were able to create Florence in a matter of weeks. Typically, we would have only been able to test perhaps a fifth of potential designs we created, whereas due to 3D printing we were able to build and test each one in quick succession. Thanks to exhaustive, rapid-fire testing, we were able to quickly create a design which maximises comfort for wearers in two ways.
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First, hooks or ‘ear savers’ are integrated into the back of the headpiece. Rubbing and skin damage are prevented by enabling the wearer to put their face mask and goggle straps through the hooks, taking the pressure off their head and stopping the straps cutting directly into their skin. Additionally, whereas some visors rest their weight on the wearer’s ears, the Florence visor’s headpiece distributes weight evenly around the side and back of the wearer’s head. These features combine to enable key workers and healthcare personnel to work at their best and help others for longer without hurting themselves.
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Alongside comfort and practicality, reusability and eliminating one-use applications are very important to us. The Florence visor enables this by allowing wearers to detach and replace just the protective, transparent plastic screen, retaining the headpiece itself for future use. This massively reduces the amount of waste created in both size and weight.