… Progress

For 2 years I’ve been researching ways to improve public toilets for older people, as part of the TACT3 project to help older people to manage continence concerns.

This soon became an inclusive design project to improve all publicly accessible toilet provision for people of all ages.

Rather than going down the ‘traditional’ product design route, I took a service design approach – applying the research, process and creativity of a designer to the design of a service.

I did this because:

• It interests me
• there’s no money for redesigning toilets
• Toilets have been redesigned, but people don’t follow the guidance
• Suggesting improvement to a service can have a wider impact, and needn’t cost much at all
• It’s relevant to the biggest providers – local government
• It seemed like the right thing to do

2 things came out of the project: a website called The Great British Public Toilet Map, and a publication called Publicly Accessible Toilets: An Inclusive Design Guide, which was actually funded by the ESRC Connected Communities programme as part of our 6-month concurrent research project called RATs – Robust Accessible Toilets – looking at conflicts between ‘Design out Crime’ guidance and Inclusive Design.

… Answers

For those that don’t know: when you have a WordPress blog you’re told the Google search terms that led someone here.

For example, today I’ve had:

• children toilet layout
• charging for public conveniences
• queue for ladies loo
• eu law and charging to use mens urinals
• london map toilet
• using public toilets
• sanitary bins for lady’s toilets

These have begun to make me feel guilty.

You’ll never find what you’re looking for in a rambling blog, and yet generally I either think I could help, or know someone or something else that could.

So click here for a link to a range of publications and websites etc. that covers:

• Design
• Provision
• Community Toilet Schemes
• Building Regulations
• British Standards
• Government & Academic Research
• Further Reading

Hope it helps!

Alternatively email me at gail.knight@network.rca.ac.uk.

Any question answered! Even if I don’t know…

… Texts

Public Toilets and … is enjoying its Christmas holidays, which consists largely of visiting relatives and shopping. Consequently I am gaining new experiences of the public toilets found in trains and shopping centres, neither of which I have many qualms with. Bliss.

During the festive period my guest article on The Guardian’s Local Government Professional Network site was published, about the benefits of texting as a means of Public – Provider communication, using the City of Westminster’s SatLav system as an example.

Some addditional information that relates to the article can be found here:

The Department of Communities and Local Government’s case study publication on Community Toilet Schemes and SatLav

and here:

A picture of a sticker on a traffic light

Happy New Year.

… Further Reading

‘Public Toilets and…’ is now nearly a month old and beginning to get hits through Google searches that suggest there are people out there who are interested in knowing more. Here are a couple of personal links for more info:

My supervisor Jo-Anne Bichard’s previous study into public toilets was part of VivaCity 2020, a research consortium that developed tools and resources to support the design of socially inclusive cities.

The outcome of this research was The Accessible Toilet Resource, a valuable document for those involved in public toilet design.

And in the name of shameless self-promotion, my own work into public toilets began with my dissertation, available here as a pdf:

The Public Toilet:A Woman’s Place was written as part of my MA at the Royal College of Art in Industrial Design Engineering.