DESIGN: DON’T DROP TOILET PAPER IN THE AIRPLANE LAVATORY

I have had the opportunity to travel by road (in one of those long luxurious buses), by air, and by boat. Such spaces for travel are made comfortable to the point where you can ease yourself in the conveniences (toilet).

One of the announcements before commencing the journey is to tell passengers and travellers that they should not drop toilet paper, pads or pampers into the water closet to avoid them getting blocked.

This is a constant announcement.

Some days back I came back from a boat journey and thought about design (trained and used to practice architecture). The goal of any design particularly, spaces is to accommodate humans. In the school of architecture we were made to understand the dimensions of the human body; how your shoulders put together is about 700mm and more. This can affect the width of your staircase design so it can accommodate two people at once.

Psychologists may think that they can predict humans or understand the human mind but that probability is low.

When the air hostess announced that you should not drop the toilet paper to avoid blockage; does that mean that any drop can actually block it? I do not think so. (Please obey instructions and do not drop).

For the design of such lavatories, let’s say for the pipes and all, there is a need to give tolerances or allowances because you know some people will disobey and drop things inside. So, such allowances prevent instant blockage and of course, those in maintenance need to constantly check because human behaviour cannot be put fully in check.

As a designer or someone building something for others you don’t know; create tolerances (allowances).

Let me end it this way; hotels are known for huge maintenance and I found a secret to this. Your hotel will have different kinds of people staying in it; from the sane to the craziest of people. People who do not even understand how to grip a handle door properly.

To avoid damages you cannot explain, when building use the best of materials and equipment. Things that cannot be easily damaged by the roughest of hands or legs or body size.

Build for the extremes of humans and design for our inadequacies that will never go away.

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