Royal flush

A 3D-printed portable toilet offers a snazzier space to answer nature’s call

Portable toilets are unglamorous things, designed for functionality not form. Across the venues that require them, such as campsites, festivals, and building sites, they are places one prefers to spend as little time in as possible and should ideally be concealed. However, a new portable toilet, recently installed amid the picturesque Gstaad landscape, aims to challenge this paradigm.

Tagged the Throne, it was commissioned by To.org (a foundation that creates and funds initiatives that address the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges) and made by Nagami, a Spanish studio that specializes in computational design. Its streamlined form resembles a rocket (tapered at the top and bottom, bulging at the core and with a slightly truncated base), and importantly, the bulk of it has been 3D-printed from discarded single-use plastics from medical facilities, sourced by Dutch company Reflow.

‘It started last October when we broke ground here on a new project,’ says To.org co-founder and CEO Nachson Mimran of the Throne’s genesis. ‘As I arrived on site, I needed the loo and walked into one of the portable toilets. I didn’t enjoy my few minutes in the cubicle, and I came out wondering if we could do something different.’