Public Toilets Design Thinking in the Architecture Design Process

Abstract

Although architectural issues show awareness of the importance of good quality public toilets, it does not take special time to discuss them in the design process. Public toilets are considered by architects as something universal, although many facts show that public toilets are always contextual. To this day, the process of designing architectural education has resulted in architects using the Design Methods approach. Along with the paradigm shift in seeing reality, the Design Methods movement shifted to Participatory Design which considers it important for users to participate in the design process. In terms of public toilets, architects still use existing universal standards and have not involved users in producing public toilets according to their respective cultural meanings. This research aims to find out whether the change in the view of the design process approach from Design Methods to Participatory Design also occurs in the design process of public toilets. The research was conducted involving the participation of architectural education final project students, cross-city professional architects, and their clients. The research method with a qualitative approach uses a constructive paradigm. The data validation and analysis use the triangulation test. The results show that the architect’s design process generally still uses the Design Methods approach, even though architects do not actually conduct the design phases as theorized by Design Methods.