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posted by Fnord666 on Friday March 13 2020, @06:09AM   Printer-friendly

BBC:

A few years ago, Nathalie Des Isnards was attending a music festival with her husband David, and planning to watch her favourite group.

Before the show, they headed to the toilets. "I spent 30 minutes in the queue waiting to pee," she recalls. Much to her frustration, she missed the first part of the concert.

Meanwhile David took just "two minutes", and saw the whole show.

"I was upset. I told myself, 'We're in the 21st century, something should be done about that.'"

She set about creating a women's urinal. The simple seatless basin she devised is housed in a cubicle with roof and door, designed for faster use but also privacy. "I was not a designer. I was a user first," says the 46-year-old.

A different but important engineering challenge.


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by phantomlord on Saturday March 14 2020, @10:59PM (2 children)

    by phantomlord (4309) on Saturday March 14 2020, @10:59PM (#971363)

    In my experience, most of the women that end up doing that, end up peeing on the seat, making a whole different mess...

    Many of us (most?) will clean the seat before we use the toilet because the person before us may have squatted, even if we're going to squat ourselves, just in case we accidentally touch the seat. Some may then create a barrier (seat liner if available, toilet paper if not), which needs to be disposed of after. And then, if the person peeing did pee on the seat, there's a 50/50 chance that she'll clean up after herself, leading to the aforementioned likelihood of cleaning the seat before using the toilet whether it appears it needs it or not.

    To go along with all of this, there are a ton of women that flush their tampons, pads, etc even though most public bathrooms have a place to dispose of them, causing the toilets to clog and limiting the number of usable stalls remaining.

    That's before we even get to the sinks and mirrors to wash up and primp.

    So, while a guy may walk up to a urinal, whip it out, pee, and then optionally flush and optionally wash his hands in 30-60 seconds, women will often waste a 60+ seconds just getting into the stall, closing the door, and cleaning before she even pees, then will almost definitely wash her hands since she just wiped and may have gotten some on herself.

    50 guys, 4 urinals, 2 stalls, at 60 seconds each means they finish in 8.3 minutes, while 50 women with 4 stalls (I figure 4 urinals take as much space as 2 stalls?) at 120 seconds each (60 to clean before, 60 to pee, with the time to wash hands and primp after being "free" regarding stall use) means they'll finish in 25 minutes. That's also assuming all four stalls stay functional, if one goes down on the first use, now we're looking at 33.3 minutes to finish.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @08:39AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 15 2020, @08:39AM (#971519)

    In case you are curious, the general rule is to allow a 2:1 urinal to stall ratio and an equal number of fixtures. So a 4:2 bathroom for men is considered equal to 6 stall women's bathroom. There is also a number of the minimum number of stalls for men and women based on the capacity of the building. Of course, at the lower end you will adjust those numbers.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @06:11AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 16 2020, @06:11AM (#971805)

      By your numbers a 4u:2s men's is a 4s women's.