Category: Industrial design practice

Small bathrooms and universal design

picture of a free standing bathtub with a shower behind in teh cornerHome design magazines now feature larger bathrooms with larger fittings, such as freestanding bathtubs. The room has gone from being a purely functional space to one of relaxation and wellbeing. Consequently, the design of small bathrooms is somewhat ignored.

Designing for Small Bathrooms by Sivertsen and Berg, of Oslo and Akershus University of Applied Sciences, Norway, seeks to address this. Their research question was how to achieve the same sense of wellbeing in small bathrooms using universal design principles. It’s an open access article.

Note that the image does not indicate universal design features. A free-standing bath becomes unusable if grab bar support is needed in the future. The shower cubicle is small and not step free. 

Abstract

This paper will focus on how to design a series of bathroom products that work well for small bathrooms using the principles of universal design. In home culture research, Quitzau and Rřpke has studied bathroom transformation from hygiene to well-being.

Bathrooms are one of the rooms in apartments that do not have good solutions for small spaces. This is unfortunate since it is the bathroom that has the least amount of space in urban apartments. This leads many people to have too little bathroom space due to furniture, toilets, showers, etc.

In today’s society, the bathroom is no longer just a purpose room. It is used for relaxation and wellness. This has led to a trend where large furniture, such as freestanding bathtubs, dominate today’s market. This in turn allows the few solutions that exist for small bathrooms to remain poorly conceived.

The research question was therefore how to create solutions for small bathrooms to get the same sense of well-being as in larger bathrooms through universal design principals. The study used the principles of universal design, observations and in-depth interviews.

This study can help to create a greater understanding of how to design small bathrooms. It will be relevant in a cross disciplinary field, including for professionals in plumbing, product design and technical solutions. This will also increase the well-being of users of the bathroom.

Social role of design

Front cover of the Elisava journal“The aim is not to come up with ground-breaking ideas, but ideas that work, that are useful to others and can be implemented”. At the heart of this statement is human-centred industrial design. Examples of success stories by Morer, Rodriguez-Ferradas and Cazon are not about universal design per se, but are examples of including people in designs who are often left out.

The examples include a wheelchair for table tennis players, and an infant warmer as an alternative to an incubator where there is no electricity. The article concludes by claiming that young designers are living in an increasingly complex world and becoming more socially aware. Therefore they can reflect this in their designs. Perhaps the challenge is for established teachers and lecturers in the discipline?

The title of the article is, The social role of design: Industrial Design is a holistic approach for problem solving. The article is published in English in a Spanish design publication, Elisava Temes de Disseny.

Showing three views of a wheelchair for table tennis players

Universal design and 40 Principles of TRIZ

A short paper by Kalevi Rantanen shows how to combine the principles of universal design and 40 Principles of TRIZ. It gives another perspective on how to apply the principles of universal design in a problem solving context. TRIZ is the Russian acronym for “Theory of Inventive Problem Solving”.

How to use 40 Principles of TRIZ flow chart: General Problem to General Solution. From Problem analysis to Evaluation and selection.

The title of the paper is, “Homes for Strong Families, Children, Seniors and All Others. How Universal Design, Design for All and Forty Principles of TRIZ Enforce Each Other”. 

The 40 Principles of TRIZ are a list of simple, and easy to learn rules for solving technical and non-technical problems quickly and simply. Studying these existing solutions can inspire people to solve new problems and imagine innovative solutions. They show how and where others have successfully eliminated contradictions. They take us to the proven, powerful recorded solutions contained in the patent database. These 40 Inventive Principles help solve both technical and non-technical problems. 

Principles and something more

The paper begins with a note about accessibility being a “must”. In TRIZ jargon accessibility is one feature of the Ideal Final Result. It’s about a check between whether a feature reduces harm for one group without increasing harm for another.

“For example, we consider removing a threshold. A harmful feature, a barrier to the user of a wheelchair or walker disappears. Are the useful features retained? Perhaps even new benefits appear? Everything useful is retained if we move thresholds. A new benefit is that it is easier to clean doors.

Will new harmful features appear? Usually not, but some doors may need sealing. In that case flexible, rubber-like thresholds can be used. Does the system become more complex? No, removing thresholds makes a building more simple.”