US architecture firm SO-IL has continued its exploration of material skins that filter the air with a set of costumes for a musical performance during the Chicago Architecture Biennial, which opens to the public today.
SO-IL collaborated with artist Ana Prvac?ki to create the seven-minute piece titled L'air pour l'air, performed by four musicians from the Chicago Sinfionetta in the city's Garfield Park Conservatory.

The team produced a set of enclosures for the body to be worn during the show, which are designed to filter the air around the performers as they play.
"Inspired by the abundant plant life in the Garfield Park Conservatory, SO-IL and Prvac?ki have created an ensemble of air-filtering mesh enclosures, designed to clean the air through breathing," said a statement from SO-IL.
The white structural costumes shroud the majority of the wearer, and are worn using straps over the shoulders and round the waist.
They resemble scaled-down versions of a prototype house that SO-IL built for this year's Milan Design Week, which was also designed to filter air pollution.
The firm's co-director Ilias Papageorgiou explains the project, completed in collaboration with MINI Living, in a movie filmed by Dezeen.

Each of the costumes is shaped to accommodate the different musical instruments. The trombone player's has a low protrusion to make space for the long moving arm, while the flutist is given more horizontal space at head height.
Of the two remaining performers, o...