Resources

Find published information on toilet design. Our resource bank includes guidance, standards, regulation, toolkits, websites and research. Resources can be filtered by type or subject area, using the keywords shown.

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An outdoor space, between two single-story buildings at right angles. The far building has many doors with toilet symbols. The side building has storage, for the play equipment that fills the space. There are trees and seating, as well as plants on the building roofs. A sign on the right says 'Engaged'

Engaged: a toilet on every high street (final report)

Author/s:: Gail Ramster, Jo-Anne Bichard, Madelaine Dowd, Indira Knight, Rosanna Traina, Maurizio Mucciola
Summary:: Engaged ran as a design research project by Royal College of Art and PiM.Studio Architects. Its aim is to think about the reuse of vacant high street units as toilets (plus commercial or community space), and to grow the idea. This report shares a few key areas that we've uncovered, that have the most potential to pursue, and where we have evidence to support future, focused studies to really fix the problems.
File:: Engaged_Final_Report.pdf 2.44 MB
Publication date:: 2023
Keywods:: Built Environment Design Inclusion Public Toilets
Type:: Report

Partial image of some comments each in different handwriting, saying: clear mirror; gender-neutral; needle exchange; more space for women; changing tables in all genders bathrooms' keep open past 8pm!' accessible for children, toddlers and neurodiverse.

Engaged: On-the-Ground Engagement and Co-design report

Author/s:: Madelaine Dowd, Indira Knight, Gail Ramster, Jo-Anne Bichard, Maurizio Mucciola
Summary:: Engaged: On-the-Ground project worked with a London Community to find what an inclusive public toilet would look like in their neighbourhood. This report shares the findings from this engagement and co-design activity, in the Hackney Central area.
File:: On-the-Ground-DLR-Report.pdf 7.26 MB
Publication date:: 2022
Keywods:: Built Environment Design Experiences Inclusion Public Toilets
Type:: Report

Image of Front page of Guide, orange background, toilet roll with 'Don't Panic' written on the last piece

Publicly Accessible Toilets after COVID-19

Author/s:: Imran Nazerali, Gail Ramster, Jo-Anne Bichard
Summary:: In this update to Publicly Accessible Toilets: An Inclusive Design Guide, we show how future toilets can be designed to be more hygienic, and also more accessible and inclusive, as a critical part of public health infrastructure.
Web link:: Go to resource
Publication date:: 2021
Keywods:: Covid-19 Design Inclusion Public Toilets
Type:: Design Guide

Troubling school toilets: resisting discourses of ‘development’ through a critical disability studies and critical psychology lens

Author/s:: Jen Slater, Charlotte Jones, Lisa Procter
Summary:: This paper, in Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, interrogates how school toilets and ‘school readiness’ are used to assess children against developmental milestones. Such developmental norms both inform school toilet design and practice, and perpetuate normative discourses of childhood as middle-class, white, ‘able’, heteronormative, cissexist and inferior to adulthood.
Web link:: Go to resource
Publication date:: 2019
Keywods:: Gender Inclusion
Type:: Academic Paper

The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’

Author/s:: Charlotte Jones, Jen Slater
Summary:: As one of the few explicitly gender-separated spaces, the toilet has become a prominent site of conflict and a focal point for ‘gender-critical’ feminism. In this article for The Sociological Review, we draw upon an AHRC-funded project, Around the Toilet, to reflect upon and critique trans-exclusionary and trans-hostile narratives of toilet spaces.
Web link:: Go to resource
Publication date:: 2020
Keywods:: Gender Inclusion
Type:: Academic Paper

Publicly Accessible Toilets: An Inclusive Design Guide

Author/s:: Jo-Anne Bichard; Gail Ramster
Summary:: This guide has been developed from an inclusive design philosophy for providers of publicly accessible toilets, designers, architects and built environment professionals to help make design decisions about their facilities.
File:: Publicly_Accissible_Toilets_1.pdf 3.75 MB
Publication date:: 2011
Keywods:: Accessibility Design Inclusion
Type:: Design Guide

How Inclusion can Exclude: The Case of Public Toilet Provision for Women

Author/s:: Gail Ramster; Clara Greed; Jo-Anne Bichard
Summary:: This paper published in Built Environment explores how public toilet design for new and existing UK provision can be inclusive all genders and their rights to access, without excluding those socially and culturally dependent on a gender-segregated space.
Web link:: Go to resource
Publication date:: 2018
Keywods:: Design Gender Inclusion
Type:: Academic Paper

A cartoon of a public toilet block in grey and green.

Around the Toilet: A Research Project Report

Author/s:: Jen Slater; Charlotte Jones
Summary:: This report summarises the key findings of a series of projects collectively known as Around the Toilet. Between April 2015 and February 2018 Around the Toilet used arts-based methods to ask what makes an accessible toilet space.
Web link:: Go to resource
Publication date:: 2018
Keywods:: Disability Gender Inclusion
Type:: Report

Toilet Design Toolkit

Author/s:: Around the Toilet
Summary:: This website aims to show that the design of toilets is both fascinating and worthy of further exploration, but crucially that toilets provide a gateway to a much more holistic approach to making better places and spaces.
Web link:: Go to resource
Publication date:: 2017
Keywods:: Design Inclusion Public Toilets
Type:: Design Guide