Winners of the 2012 “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge<\/a>“, Caltech<\/strong> teamed up with plumbing manufacturer\u00a0Kohler<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>to develop\u00a0a mobile restroom equipped with a solar-powered water-treatment system that could be used in areas without plumbing infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Kohler was invited\u00a0to collaborate on this project as the company\u00a0has been around in the Indian markets for a while and has collaborated with several designers and architects. Kohler’s Indian team assisted in selecting locally available\u00a0plumbing products and played an important role in the overall d\u00e9cor to ensure that local communities were more accepting of the new technology. \u00a0The biggest challenge was to establish a cultural context to the local environment. \u00a0After weeks of extensive research and design process, the exterior design was finalized. Kohler’s global creative director,\u00a0Tristan Butterfield chose\u00a0the traditional Indian truck art for the exterior design and\u00a0Open Door Design Studio (ODDS)<\/strong> was brought on board to\u00a0provide the design concepts.<\/p>\n

“I\u00a0<\/span>started to work with them to specify the right products for project, knowing they\u2019re trying to build sealed toilet solution prototype to be shipped to India on the 17th of December.”<\/em>\u00a0 explains Butterfield. The mobile restroom had to be placed inside a container to showcase at the \u201cReinvent the Toilet Fair\u201d in New Delhi, India. Butterfield adds, “The fact is that this thing is going to be put into a community in India and someone is going to have to live with that.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The exterior colourful artwork comprising of\u00a0\u00a0flowers, birds, animals and scenery – all inspired by the truck art of India.<\/p>\n

“The research process required us\u00a0to select motifs and messages that would propagate the significance of water conservation and environment sustainability \u2014 concepts that formed the essence of the project, while capturing the stylistic quality of the truck art. Illustrations of Sun, girls worshipping the Sun, oils lamps and introduction of solar panels in the village scene were some of the many design decisions we made to highlight the importance of solar energy in the project as well as everyday life.”, explains designers at ODDS<\/p>\n

The interiors of the restroom was inspired by the old-fashioned Indian bathrooms. It is installed with\u00a0blue geometric tiles supplied\u00a0by Heath Ceramics. With cheap mobility services, “More people in India have cell phones than toilets”.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Keeping this in mind, a charging station with a bench has been provided which also seats visitors waiting to use the toilet.<\/p>\n

In March 2014, the mobile container restroom was showcased at\u00a0\u201cReinvent the Toilet Fair: India\u201d, an event co-hosted by the Government of India\u2019s Department of Biotechnology and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.<\/p>\n

Kohler hired local Indian artists to paint the\u00a0exterior artworks, creating a lovely platform for their\u00a0work to be showcased.<\/p>\n

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Mobile Restroom Concept<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Side Views<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Front and Rear View<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Details of the Artwork<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Local artists at work<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Completed Mobile Restroom displayed with other mobile toilets<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Mobile Restroom\u00a0equipped with a solar-powered water-treatment system<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

+ Caltech<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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+ Kohler<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

+ Open Door Design Studio<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winners of the 2012 “Reinvent the Toilet Challenge“, Caltech teamed up with plumbing manufacturer\u00a0Kohler\u00a0to develop\u00a0a mobile restroom equipped with a solar-powered water-treatment system that could be used in areas without plumbing infrastructure. Kohler was invited\u00a0to collaborate on this project as the company\u00a0has been around in the Indian markets for a while and has collaborated with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4706,36],"tags":[7135,7138,7136,7134,7137,7051],"yoast_head":"\n