Air it Out: Turning Laundry into a Tool for Care
As part of my thesis on designing better endings, I explored how brands often disengage post-sale—leaving users to navigate product breakdowns alone.
How do we bring repair into everyday life—not as a burden, but as a practice of care?
Air It Out is a public-facing intervention designed to be embedded in the overlooked corners of routine life—like the neighborhood laundromat. It explores how brands, landlords, and community spaces might design better end-of-use experiences. And to understand what “threshold to care” really means in the context of everyday maintenance.
Visible Futures Lab
Jingyi Zhu
Rohitha Remala
Visible Futures Lab
Jingyi Zhu
Rohitha Remala
INSIGHT
Most people know when something is worn—but few know what to do next.
What I observed:
-
People rarely throw out what they love—they just set it aside
-
Maintenance is deeply personal, often invisible
-
Repair isn’t always practical, but care often is
-
When given time and prompts, people do want to reflect
This intervention was my way of testing how those feelings show up in a real-world setting.
Laundry emerged as a surprisingly intimate ritual—one already tied to reflection and solitude
The laundromat wasn’t just a backdrop. It was a design constraint. By embedding Air It Out in this typology, I reframed the laundromat as a quiet, semi-public space of emotional processing—not just cleaning.
Intervention as a Program
-
1-on-1 “laundry therapy” conversations
-
Volvelles to assess a garment’s wear
-
Writing a pact to a beloved item
-
Relabeling clothes with custom care instructions
-
Stitching a button or patch on the spot
Rinse and spin cycles as containers for reflection.
Some stayed to talk. Others came back after their cycle to finish writing. One person named their socks. Another asked how to get out wine stains. Most were surprised by how much they cared once they started talking.
From Throwaway to Thinking-again
This intervention measured three care thresholds:
Prompt Reflection --------------- Participation in conversations and letters
Encourage repair or maintenance --------------- Choice of care labels or mend tools
Normalize garment storytelling --------------- Artifacts people took and kept
What I Learned
-
Making time within time—e.g. rinse/dry cycles—helped people pause
-
Some thought I was giving care tips, which revealed design assumptions
-
Others wanted to engage but didn’t know how to start—a clearer invitation could help
What could Scale
-
Kits that can be deployed in brand retail or apartment complexes
-
A version of the experience in employee wellness programs
-
Brand collaborations that ritualize maintenance at the point of product use or return
