Get This: The Open Smoking Booth Will Bring Smoking Back to America’s Airports

July 2nd, 2009

By: Ben

Hardcore smokers hate airports, and rightly so. The designated smoking area in any airport is without exception the filthiest room this side of a JetBlue lavatory. The walls are peely and jaundice-colored, the ceilings have tar stains all over them, and the floor is always linoleum, which is the worst kind of floor. Why? Well obviously because it’s like Beijing in there, smoke-wise, but also I suspect that airport janitors give the room a less than thorough cleaning, just as a f*ck-you to smokers. You know, rub the dog’s nose in the poop so that it stops sh*tting in the house.

That all may change with the new Yanko Design Open Smoking Booth, a Jetsons-age-looking thing that creates a an invisible spherical “air wall” around the smoker, filtering the nasty secondhand smoke out and allowing fresh air in. Hit this sh*t for more details and pictures.

It’s modern and sleek with a circular arm stand on the base embedded into the floor. A cylindrical glass ash bin with a metal top stands in the middle.

When this system starts, the smoke is filtered by the arm top where low-pressure air is generated. The “air wall” (a transition between low air pressure and high air pressure) keeps the smoke within it. Then the purified fresh air is sent out to the center of the booth from the lower part of the arm. The smoking space is therefore created by this invisible spherical “air wall” through which the travelers can walk conveniently in and out of.

Alas, it’s only on paper right now, but perhaps it will go into production. The doctor told you you only had two years to live if you kept it up, but if you quit now, you may never get to know the joy of getting your cancer on in super-futuristic Open Smoking Booth, untouched and untroubled by the stares and jeers of the nonsmokers, tucked in your happy little bubble.