Public toilets play an important role in our lives outside of home. However, they are often neglected as an aspect of a inclusive society. A new book based on 20 years of research looks at the issues. More than 500 people contributed their perspectives to this critical overview. It presents an urgent need to re-evaluate the accessibility of, and culture around, these essential spaces.
The authors explore the complexities around using public toilets. They draw from a rich body of research into public toilet design, public services, accessibility and social injustice. They examine a diverse array of design considerations related to age, disability, neurodiversity and gender.
The authors look at the development of toilet design in the UK, discussing examples of successful and failed designs. They present an innovative approach for the future that reframes a space associated with unpleasantness and inaccessibility as one that is essential and respected.
This rigorous study considers the body’s needs and decision making on leaving home. That includes issues of navigating, locating and entering facilities, and issues related to cubicles, fixtures, products and hygiene. The authors present an inclusive design approach that can help designers, planners and managers create these spaces more effectively and understand what every prospective user might need, with a sense of safety, comfort and dignity.
The title of the book is, Designing Inclusive Public Toilets: Wee the People. Both authors are from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal Collage of Art, UK.
Public toilets by universal design
We all have to go sometime. Accessible public toilets have their own Australian Standard. It spells out how to design it and what fittings go where. But an accessible toilet doesn’t solve all our toileting issues. It’s time take a universal design approach and re-think the business of public toilets.
Thinking more broadly than people with limited mobility is important if we are to be inclusive. Katherine Webber’s Conference paper explains where the design of public toilets are letting some people down. She discusses the taboos, policy and legal barriers in several countries. Katherine lists the many issues people found with public toilets and they go beyond those of wheelchair accessible toilets. She proposes that a universal design approach be taken to the design and placement of public toilets.
Katherine recently visited Canberra to talk to policy makers how our public toilets should better. ABC News has written a short piece on her visit and some of the findings from her Churchill Fellowship research.
The title of Katherine’s paper is, Everyone, everywhere, everyday: A case for expanding universal design to public toilets. She will also lead a discussion group at the lunchtime Table Topics session at the conference.