Spatial Design: An Industrial Designers Approach
An honest attempt by an industrial designer to apply the design process in an architectural space!
Hi, I am Arul Ganesh, an Industrial Designer, and a design researcher, During my 3 years of postgraduate studies at DJ Academy of Design on Industrial Design, I learned a lot about designing products, production methods, and how to create aesthetically appealing products and, most importantly, design process. With all that learning I decided to apply it in my final year graduation project but I didn't choose any product to apply the learning, instead, I was more excited to apply it in an architectural space.
Why was I so curious about applying the learning to an architectural space?
We prefer to test the quality when we buy vegetables to ensure we eat safe food. We may only pay 20-30 rs to buy half a kilogram of tomato, but we prefer to test the price and ask a thousand questions before we buy it. We 're 'that peculiar to what we eat right? How are we not using the same logic when building or buying a house? Why aren't we asking if this (health-wise) house will be safe for me and my family? Imagine how much cash one would spend on building a house? In the meantime, we don't really question things even though we invest a lot in building or buying a house.
A popular saying in Tamil goes “Get a son/daughter married, or build a home and then talk about problems”. Roughly to suggest getting a son/daughter married and building a home can be the toughest task a family can endure in their lifetime.
In South India, the main aim of an ordinary middle-class family is to get their son/daughter married and have a happy life, work so hard to achieve this dream, and save every penny to buy or build a home. Houses have become a social status, to get your son or daughter married, you 'd need to own a house, otherwise, your son or daughter's marriage would be delayed or I might not even happen. With so much pressure on the middle-class family, they tend to focus only on what needs to be done now to get their son/daughter married.
I believe, In design, it's all about the user, we design things from day to day to make users' lives better. Thus, with this vision, I realized that users may not be in a space to ask the aforementioned questions instead its a designer's duty to take care of the safety of users as the first priority.
With a limited amount of time to complete my graduation project, I decided to concentrate on designing the house's most unsafe place.
Where the majority of injuries occur in a house? Bathroom (which has a toilet as well) and stairs! Who is most affected by it? Elders at home/ Pregnant Women. With enough secondary research and qualitative research, I decided to design a bathroom that helps elders and pregnant women perform simple tasks such as URINATING, DEFECATING, BATHING in a better and healthier way.
The design should encourage users to squat but shouldn't sacrifice comfort.
Scientifically confirmed the squatting strategy is the best way to defecate to avoid hemorrhoids and constipation. Many elderly people suffer from hemorrhoids and constipation due to the use of the western water closet that doesn't encourage you to squat, squatting is the normal, traditional, and safe method of defecation.
The design also takes care of a lot of usability problems with basic tasks in mind and aims to provide the space with a refreshing aesthetic.
Concept 1: Space 'S'- 10sftx10sft
The shape of the space is derived from the letter 'S 'meaning Safety. This idea has a separate toilet and bathroom with doors opposite each other to encourage elderly and pregnant women to walk more in the morning sunshine.
Concept 2: 5sqft X 7sqft Toilet attached Bathroom
The concept is ergonomically designed to allow any user to perform simple tasks inside the space. The main aim of this design was to maintain the key features from concept 1 to fit in a 5sqft X 7sqft space so that it can be easily incorporated in any house or apartment that has less space.
And how does this address the main challenge of getting elderly and pregnant women to squat without compromising comfort?
Elderly people suffer from joint and knee pain as they age which makes it difficult for them to squat, its even more painful for pregnant women to squat during their pregnancy.
A Water closet designed to provide comfort using detachable polyurethane cushion, and allows users to squat for a long time. During the qualitative research elderly population mentioned that they would take breaks while voiding, either they standup or stretch their legs in the front to avoid knee pain.
The water closet would be immersed in an elevated platform where the user can only access the polyurethane cushion. The first picture refers to the normal squat pose that creates pressure on the abdomen which contributes to quick voiding during defecation. On the right-hand side image, the legs of the user would be lifted to a certain height on the platform, which lets the thighs exert pressure on the abdomen for successful voiding (may not be 100 percent relative to standard squat posture, but certainly better than sitting posture).In the current design, users can extend their legs in front of the platform in case of knee pain, handles are provided to allow any user to opt for the standard squat posture.
PROTOTYPE TESTING
It's very exciting to come up with cool-looking designs every day, but if it doesn't work for the user there's no point in all this, so I figured why not try one of the designs in my house and test it with the target users.
When I tested the design with 10-12 users, 10 elderly people out of 12 were able to conduct the defecation easily without much discomfort as opposed to sitting on a west water closet.
CONCLUSION
I'm still working on this project with the help of constant user feedback and I hope to build a whole house that helps people get to a healthier lifestyle without thinking about it, as a designer my job doesn't stop with documenting my project and getting a grade, but I have a vision of taking it to every old age house for free of cost and then iterate on it to add more value for the users. Thank you for reading this. I am very happy and proud to share my work with you!
