Female urinal designed to reduce toilet queues

23rd of August 2019
Female urinal designed to reduce toilet queues

Lapee is a new industrial standard female toilet for festivals and outdoor events designed for quick and safe use. Developed by Gina Périer and Alexander Egebjerg the pink plastic structure has three urinals arranged in a spiral, with curving back rests that provide privacy while allowing the user to remain aware of their surroundings.

Claimed to be sturdy, easy to transport and easy to clean, Lapee can be linked to an existing sewage system if it's available but it also has its own 1,100 litre tank so it can stand alone and collect liquid waste for processing.

Weighing 200 kilograms when empty, it is made from recyclable polyethylene, which means it can be hosed down for cleaning and withstand the knocks of an outdoor event. And it has been built to last for decades.

"We had observed that there had been some tests for women's urinals before, but they were always installations or something put together on site - nothing fully industrialised, nothing scalable," said Périer, a French architect based in Copenhagen.

The designers studied the form of male urinals to create a solution for people who need to sit down to urinate - a position that leaves people more vulnerable.

"Guys have to be covered only from the front and the female has to be covered from front and back," Périer told Dezeen. "Because it's a urinal to be intimate enough for people to pee, but it has to be not too intimate."

Périer believes the urinals, which do not have doors, have a raised seat and walls that are low enough that users can see over without people being able to look in, are safer than standard outdoor toilets.

"You're way more safe than if you're behind a door which is locked and no one can see," she explained.

"You're also 60 centimetres above the ground. We did that so we don't have the vulnerable feeling of squatting down - your eye level is at the same height as someone standing."

Périer and Egebjerg hope this design could also be used in disaster recovery situations or refugee camps.

 

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