The Toilet Design Toolkit is a digital tool designed to support architects, designers, academics and students to critically and creatively rethink notions of access in relation to the toilet design process.
The digital design toolkit is the result of the evolving relationship between architectural education and Around the Toilet. In 2015 the Around the Toilet Live Project at the Sheffield School Architecture raised awareness of the inadequacies of toilet design and students analysed existing building standards and regulations in relation to toilets and accessibility. Through Servicing Utopia, in 2016, we ran workshops with architects to engage with, and explore, the opportunities and challenges related to the design of safe and accessible toilet spaces. Most recently, in 2017/2018, various pedagogical methods have been used and developed in the teaching of a group Masters of Architecture students at Sheffield School of Architecture.
The toolkit has organically developed through the projects interaction with education. It responds to the stories of people involved in the Around the Toilet project for whom accessing a safe and comfortable toilet space is a continual challenge. The toolkit aims support practitioners and students when designing toilets and aims to encourage and empower them to rethink our inadequate and outmoded approach to the design of toilets.
The Toilet Design Toolkit encompasses a range of resources that enable people to engage with toilet design at varying levels of detail and intensity; from alternative CAD toilet templates, to practice exemplars and pedagogical examples. The resource aims to support more informed decision making and creative approaches to toilet design.
The toolkit was developed in conjunction with Live Works, The University of Sheffield School of Architecture’s ‘Urban Room’.
The Toilet Design Toolkit is openly accessible to all at: www.aroundthetoilet.wixsite.com/toiletdesigntoolkit
Around the Toilet 