Study on all-gender toilets to create inclusive toilet environments in educational facilities
Project Summary
Principal Investigator | FUJIYAMA Mamiko (Education and Research Department Center for Interdisciplinary AI and Data Science) |
|---|---|
| Co-investigators | NAGASAWA Natsuko (Faculty of Core Research Natural Science Division) |
| Research period | FY 2022 – |
| SDGs Goals | 5（Gender Equality） 11（Sustainable Cities and Communities） |
Outline of Research
Toilet spaces have often been designed by referencing long-standing architectural and planning standards, and minor user concerns have been disregarded as infrequent issues. However, a gender-sensitive perspective has recently begun considering fully private or shared toilet spaces. Toilets in educational facilities are part of school and workplace spaces used by specific groups of people.
Accordingly, toilet spaces in educational facilities are associated with many delicate issues that differ from those of toilet spaces in public facilities used by an unspecified number of people. It has been pointed out that the installation of all-gender toilets in educational facilities can lead to significant psychological hurdles related to hygiene and safety on the part of women. In addition, differences in thinking based on gender can have a significant impact on the future development of this field.
This study aims to clarify the relationship between various issues related to the installation of all-gender toilets, verify the spatial configuration of toilet spaces from the perspective of gendered innovation, and propose all-gender toilets in educational facilities to create an inclusive toilet environment.
Research Reports
Research Reports
This study examines the potential of inclusive spaces for public toilets as a model case for adapting “Gendered innovation” to design spaces. Gendered innovation is an approach to research and development that considers gender perspectives, such as differences in physique, body structure and function, age-related changes, and social and cultural factors.
This year, the research focused on differences in environmental psychology and behavior in public toilet spaces in an effort to clarify psychological acceptance differences. A web-based survey was conducted to determine the actual conditions of use, psychology, and behavior of unisex public toilets in Japan. In addition, differences in the environmental and psychological evaluation structure of unisex public toilets based on biological sex differences and gender were investigated using a qualitative survey employing the rating grid method.