Industrial designer Siew Ming Cheng's "Spike Away" is your commuter-dream-come-true: a wearable way to guarantee you won't be up close and personal with the next person's breath and music and perfume.

Images: A woman wears a green mesh "vest" of perforated material, complete with spikes out the sides to ward off fellow commuters on a train. Sharp ends extend from shoulders and arms to indicate personal space. Renderings exhibit the scale and operation of the material.

​Core77 reports that Cheng was part of a 2-day workshop on design addressing mundane problems, and she came up with this—a way to keep strangers at bay in crowded situations.

SpikeAway-Comp

This is the kind of project dealing with everyday realities: wishes left unsaid, ideas unexpressed. What *would* be the right amount of space granted, and the right amount of flexibility for those around you? It's hard to say, exactly, but these devices start to imagine that negotiation.

SpikeAway-Comp3

Made from pre-fabbed strips of material designed to keep pets away from plants, these are wearable defensive mechanisms, for those brave enough to use them. More from Siew Ming Cheng.