Tokyo’s public toilets are often in the news for their stunning features such as heated seats, cleansing sprays, music, and much more. But what about India, where communities in some metros and many rural areas, commuters and people on the go, still do not have access to public toilets? With the global cost of inadequate sanitation reaching $260 billion annually, and a quarter of the world’s population lacking access to decent toilets, young architects, innovators and designers in India are steadily proving how design can make a difference by revisiting toilet infrastructure, and going beyond basics to provide integrated services for the public.
Govardhan Sagar Lake, Udaipur, has this public toilet with cafe, amphitheatre and baby feeding room. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Removing the social stigma
MAD(E) IN MUMBAI, an architecture and urban design practice, had co-founders Kalpit Ashar and Mayuri Sisodia setting out to make sustainable, sanitary, multipurpose and inclusive toilet designs in prominent locations. They concluded that public toilets must have integrated infrastructure and be contextually relevant in the everyday lives of people, instead of being isolated service entities. The team identified 25 concerns that plagued existing public toilets, including bad ventilation, difficulties of maintenance, incorrect material choices, low water capacity, lack of aids for seniors, no holistic ergonomic considerations and poor instructional signage.
This informed approach led to The Toilet Manifesto (launched by Municipal Commissioner of Mumbai Ajoy Mehta in 2017) with 10 typologies for varied use case scenarios. The team listed all the parameters associated with a functioning public toilet such as sanitation technology, recycling systems, construction methods, maintenance models, operational and maintenance costs, delivery models, and designated these for each typology. By picking all the modules required for a toilet they are planning, agencies can zero in on the right typology for their environment. Ashar explains, “It sets up a holistic design framework through which the architecture of public toilets could be integrated with its community and environment.”
Outside Secunderabad Railway Station. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
MAD(E) IN MUMBAI has gathered considerable traction across the country, notably with Telangana, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Karnataka governments recognising their concentrated efforts. A key challenge for the team was to remove the social stigma around toilets, which usually is an unwieldy box located inconveniently on the footpath. Ashar says, “We wanted to change the imagery around the toilet, and allow the public to feel a part of it.” Their designs combine modern amenities with traditional approaches, offering a sense of grace and respect. Their design of The Urban Loo, implemented by Toilets and Toilets Pvt Ltd near Secunderabad Railway Station, has louvered jaalis of stone, blue painted ceilings, wooden doors and an attractive clock tower feature. In 2018, the Rajasthan Government commissioned them for seven cities, and aligning with their outlook, gave them sites that were visible and accessible. Out of 10 designated locations, they finally did four, one of them being at Rambagh Circle. The large integrated amphitheatre toilet with the bus stop which has an ATM, a baby feeding room and drinking water, has since become a gathering place for youngsters in the heart of the city.
Ram Niwas Garden, Jaipur, has a public toilet with a spacious amphitheatre. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Likewise, the use of vibrant colours, lush garden areas and special facilities, all make the experience at Ram Niwas garden in Jaipur, luxurious and enabling. The two major leaps for the group have been getting acceptability for the toilet and stakeholders’ understanding of the rule of design and its importance. Integration in the landscape is central to all of their typologies: such as a toilet in a police chowk in Rajasthan and a skywalk, a park and a bridge in Hyderabad as well as at the Charminar.
Rejuvenating ‘boxes’
The pathway to the toilet area, created by The Light Box. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Interiors of a toilet, made by The Light Box, for other abled people. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
RC Architects founder 37-year-old Rohan Chavan’s first intervention for public toilets was in 2016 when they pitched ideas in response to an NGO’s requirement for a women’s toilet. Chavan’s design was accepted. Contrary to the design of most public toilets, his was an open structure that also offered privacy with closed doors and solid walls. “Public toilets are usually so dirty that you simply want to rush in and out,” says Chavan. Conceptualised around a tree, The Light Box included a central garden with a bench and an artwork, giving users a moment of respite. The Orange Box in Malkapur followed in 2017 and Pause on the Mumbai-Goa highway in 2018. Pause uses waterless urinals with the Zerodor technology.
A view of the truck drivers’ area created by Pause. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Chavan’s biggest lesson was understanding human behavioural patterns and using design as a way to negotiate how people can behave in public spaces. “We use both Indian and Western WCs, reduce maintenance by choosing materials that are seamless such as granite slabs with minimum joints. It is easy to mop a stone floor and clean walls of ACP panels or stainless-steel.” A high skylight is preferable to a window, which gets misused as a trash corner for cigarettes and sanitary pads. The restroom as a space to literally ‘pause’ is central to Chavan’s inventive process: Pause has a separate space for truck drivers to rest. Likewise, on Chitradurga-Bengaluru highway and Jaipur-Sarjapur highway, this concept for truck drivers to relax, rejuvenate and even repair their trucks was incorporated.
The section for women and other abled people, made by Pause. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
RC Architects’ upcoming public restroom designs are slated for Gift City, an integrated city between Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, in collaboration with a fintech for building the toilets.
Is ‘dry’ efficient?
For Ashwani Aggarwal, 33, Founder of BasicShit, designing toilets has been about reaching as many people, starting with a minimum viable product. It all began when Aggarwal, who was studying at the Delhi College of Fine Arts, chose sanitation as his thesis project for communication design in 2014. While executing his provocative posters that asked — Mobile phone or toilet, TV Chahiye ya Toilet, Aggarwal realised how large the issues were around open defecation and public urination. He designed a urinal with a 25-litre plastic bottle, where the outlet pipe meets the drainage. The overwhelming response from street vendors and public gave him the impetus to dedicate his life to designing and implementing toilets.
A set-up by The Humble Toilet. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Co-founder Sahaj Umang Singh, 32, met Aggarwal at the Ziro Festival in Arunachal Pradesh in 2014. Talking about the collective’s flagship innovation — a dry toilet, the most sensible solution as most areas lack water facilities, Singh says, “Until 200 years ago, humans were only using dry toilets.” Reminding us that flush toilets and U-bends were invented in London, he adds, “In rural areas, people defecate in the fields as it is more efficient!” The group invented The Humble Toilet, which uses sawdust to absorb the waste matter. “Why Humble? Because it is retrieving waste, recycling plastic, saving water, is easy to transport and easy to assemble. Our main mission is to make affordable toilets and put more toilets out there in the world.” To my observation that the toilets look a trite small and therefore cumbersome to use, he explains that the design optimises the use of recycled plastic sheets. Further, because they are transported flat and assembled on site, where a truck would carry eight similar readymade toilets, their stackable design can go in batches of 36. The finished size is 8ft tall and 4ft x 4ft ground area.
Public toilets by Pee Pee Urinal | Photo Credit: Special arrangement
Getting ownership from people has been instrumental for the group of designers and creative innovators, who involve whoever they are serving. Women in rural areas assemble the toilet themselves. The team at BasicShit always places toilets in the brightest and most visible areas, so that vandalism is minimal. Since inception, they’ve got orders from music festivals, Rajasthan Desert Festival, refugee camps even at the Singhu Border and Tikri border (Delhi-Haryana borders) for the farmers’ protest in 2020-2021. While they have fashioned toilets from bamboo, Singh vouches for recycled plastic, which he believes solves the problems of sanitation, hygiene and segregation in one go.
The writer is a brand strategist with a background in design from SAIC and NID.
Published - September 06, 2024 04:30 pm IST
