Recent years have produced no dearth of design interventions to improve quality of life for wealthy urban dwellers, but some recent efforts in San Francisco are targeted to help the city's homeless population.
According to an article by Allison Arieff, "a consortium of groups led by Hyphae Design Lab published a comprehensive 'Public Toilet Project Masterplan' to design and deploy better public restrooms in [San Francisco]."
The need for the masterplan arose after the (Human) Wasteland project mapped human waste throughout the city of San Francisco, where some 7,000 individuals are homeless.
Arieff goes on to detail some of the creative ideas currently available for solving some of the hygienic impacts of homelessness, including a mobile street urinal with sink that doubles as a planter (and cost only $2,000 to build) and a bus converted into a shower facility.
New York, with it's famously ineffective public toilet plans, might want to take notice of some of these ideas.
Read the full story: Showers on Wheels
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Harvard University Graduate School of Design
KFH Group Inc.
Greater Baltimore Committee
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello