Designing Inclusive Public Toilets: Wee the People

It has never been more important for inclusive design research to inform society. Based on 20 years of research and incorporating perspectives from over 500 participants, this book provides a critical overview of public toilet design in the UK and presents an urgent need to re-evaluate the accessibility of, and culture around, these essential spaces.

Public toilets are a vital element of public health infrastructure and an area of the built environment that everyone would use, if they could. Drawing from a rich body of research into toilet design, public services, accessibility and social injustice, Jo-Anne Bichard and Gail Ramster explore the complexities around using these facilities and 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, and 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 takes into consideration the body’s needs and decision making on leaving home, 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.

Jo-Anne Bichard is Professor of Accessible Design in the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art, UK. She is a design anthropologist and has undertaken two of the UK’s largest empirical studies on inclusive design and public toilets, focusing on design’s success and/or failure to meet users’ needs for physical access as well as safety and dignity.

Gail Ramster is Senior Research Associate in the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art, UK. She is a design researcher focused on people-centered and co-design approaches addressing social challenges. Her research has encompassed service and urban design, digitial applications and public toilet design.