2-in-1 Toilet: Seat, Lid & Urinal
In a way, essentially every home toilet is already a two-in-one device for sitting down on or standing up at. Designs like this question: is the simplest solution always the best?
Aside from the water-saving aspects of a adding a low-flush urinal component, there are elements of personal comfort, convenience, neatness and health that come into play as well. There is also a space-saving component for public restrooms (or studio-sized home bathrooms) potentially too.
Without going into too much unnecessary detail, the Natura concept by Jose Genovés largely speaks for itself: women and men can sit as usual, but men can also stand and save water in the process. There is more to the design, but out of prudence (or prudishness) let us leave it at that until some better (and safer-for-work) renderings are available.
“The Living Green project is an European cooperation with the objective to demonstrate technologies, methods and strategies for sustainable renovation. I focused my thesis on making the toilet more water efficient, since water is becoming a scarce resource while a standard toilet consumes 15 times more drinking water per day than a human being does. The result is Natura. “
But if you really insist on reading all of the dirty details, here they are:
“Each type of human waste requires different amount of water to be flushed away. Natura makes difference between toilet’s performances and discharges the right amount of water for each one of them: A.- Natura provides a male urinal integrated into the toilet design. The urinal will dispose the urine with only half a liter of water, saving 30% of the water used by conventional toilets for the same purpose.”
“B + C.- Natura also has a separating bowl that disposes liquid and solid waste independently. The bowl has 2 drainages, a standard one using 6 liters of water to dispose the solid feces, and an extra mini drain that only uses half a liter to flush the urine.”
