Of course you can, but that won't do anything. The situation is such that you
sweep the floor and in a couple of hours everything is again covered with
black dust. Unless you keep the windows (and the balcony doors and the
lightwell windows) closed and the air purifier running 24/7, year-round, you
wouldn't achieve anything in the way you propose.
Besides, keeping the windows and doors closed 24/7 during the summer months
(and quite a bit of Spring and Autumn too) in Athens is suicide. You'd have to
also run an AC unit 24/7. And that's expensive and pointless- there are times
of the day that it is very pleasant outside, even in the heart of summer. So
you close your windows in the monring, to keep the heat outside, and reopen
them in the evening to let fresh air in. That saves a lot on AC costs (and
energy waste) - but of course it lets the dust back in.
In general, Greece is not Dubai. It doesn't make sense to try and create a
sealed environment to isolate onself from the outside, in one's home. Finally,
Athens is a city of 7 million people. Implementing your proposed solution
would significantly increase the cost of living for many, not least because
most live in old houses that would need maintainance before they have any
chance to be used in this way.
The obvious solution to the problem of course, is to improve air quality
across the city. After all, at some point most people have to go out and they
can't very well take with them their sealed, air-conditioned home cocoon.
> That saves a lot on AC costs (and energy waste) - but of course it lets the dust back in.
By the way, this is why traditional Japanese homes have shoji screens instead of glass windows. Japan has a lot of dust and pollen. Shoji paper is permeable to air (and so convective heat) and light, but not to dust or pollen. So essentially the entirety of the house has a HEPA-like "firewall" between the inside air and outside air, without needing any powered forced-air system to get fresh air inside. The windows are "open" in a breeze sense, while being "closed" in a dust sense. (Thus why they don't actually "open"; this is already kind of an optimal combination.) The wind still blows air into and through the house—especially when the doors are also shoji panels.
The only downside is that, like a HEPA filter, the screens will get dusty/sooty on the outside, and need to be wiped clean. (But shoji is not a rough material, so the dust doesn't adhere very strongly, and can be wiped off pretty easily.)
To clarify, do shoji screens allow a current to form? In Athens, homes that have balconies or windows on opposing sides, so that opening them creates a (stronger) draught, are highly valued (also partly because they are brighter because they let more light in). I haven't lived in a house with shoji, but I would think that the paper stops a draught forming?
I agree that it sounds like an elegant solution, regardless. I'm just concerned it would be difficult to convince 7 million Athenians to adopt it :)
There's also the issue of noise, of course. Especially relevant for people living close to main thoroughfares, which is very common in Athens, a city of many main thoroughfares.
I believe—don't quote me on this, I haven't lived in a shoji-panel house either—you can't really get a "breeze" going through a shoji-panel house, in the sense of air pushing its way through the house (without opening the doors on the intake side and so negating the air-cleaning benefits); but what you can do is get air to pull through the house, which is sorta like a breeze. It's fresh air, rather than stagnant/humid air, but it won't dry your laundry.
I believe how this works, is that you wait for wind or sun to be hitting the house on one side, and then open the windows/doors on the opposite side of the house from the wind/sun. Then, either the vacuum created by the turbulence at the far side of the house (in the case of wind)—or the air-pressure difference between the hot and cool sides of the house (in the case of sun)—will create a low-air-pressure area on the outtake side, and so suck air out of the house through the outtake gap. There's then a pressure difference between the inside of the house and the high-air-pressure on the intake side; and since shoji is permeable, the house will suck air in through the shoji to balance the pressure difference.
Probably, in a modern house designed to take advantage of the same principle, you could avoid having to run around opening and closing doors, and instead passively automate this, by putting low-friction one-way valved vents on all exterior walls of the house. Then, no matter which way the air-pressure-gradient formed, the house would release air in some direction and then intake air from every other direction to fill it.
I believe this system falls down when the house is equally-lit (e.g. at noon) and the wind is stagnant (e.g. when you're in a high-pressure system.) But at that point, there's also no wind to blow dust in, so you may as well open all the doors and turn on a fan.
Also, rather than needing a passive environmental pressure difference, you could just run a blower fan that pushes air out of the house, e.g. an oven hood fan or bathroom vent fan. That'd also create an air-pressure difference with the power to suck air in through the shoji.
Besides, keeping the windows and doors closed 24/7 during the summer months (and quite a bit of Spring and Autumn too) in Athens is suicide. You'd have to also run an AC unit 24/7. And that's expensive and pointless- there are times of the day that it is very pleasant outside, even in the heart of summer. So you close your windows in the monring, to keep the heat outside, and reopen them in the evening to let fresh air in. That saves a lot on AC costs (and energy waste) - but of course it lets the dust back in.
In general, Greece is not Dubai. It doesn't make sense to try and create a sealed environment to isolate onself from the outside, in one's home. Finally, Athens is a city of 7 million people. Implementing your proposed solution would significantly increase the cost of living for many, not least because most live in old houses that would need maintainance before they have any chance to be used in this way.
The obvious solution to the problem of course, is to improve air quality across the city. After all, at some point most people have to go out and they can't very well take with them their sealed, air-conditioned home cocoon.