Sustainable and portable toilet 3D printed
In the field of 3d printing pretty much everything you can imagine has been printed. It has enormous potential as a low-cost solution supported by that on-demand production.
With printers that reach several meters in height, it has been possible to build steel bridges, houses in 24 hours and even entire neighborhoods. Even so, there is still some way to explore.
The Spanish study Nagami, which investigates the future of design with multiple technological disciplines, has surprised us with the project The Throne (The Throne) printed in 3D.
The Throne is a portable toilet that looks towards a future of innovation and sustainability. Made from plastic waste from hospitals across Europe that were fused into a filament for printing with 3D technology.
The project is built in three parts with a design that vaguely evokes a rocket; a teardrop-shaped outer shell, a curved sliding door and a tank that collects any solid waste that may be produced. In total, three days of printing.
The toilet itself, although the lid is not a print for hygienic and used reasons. It is designed with a system that allows the separation of urine and solids, which can be used as composting locally.
A project with a groundbreaking design where curved shapes are the soul of a necessary and obligatory object, and not only in “in situ” works, without losing that sense of environmental responsibility.
The first The Throne prototype is installed in the picturesque landscape of Gstaad, on a construction site in the Alps Swiss as we can see in the following image.
The aim of the project is to show that 3D printing technology and using recycled plastic as a material, it is feasible to produce really complicated structures and that benefit the environment.
Nagami … "We wanted to show that large-scale 3D printing can offer much more than ornaments and single-material elements".
Plastic waste is almost an inexhaustible resource, low cost and around 90% is still to be recycled, we have plenty of material!
The project is designed by Francis Kéré for the To.org foundation. A hybrid between a venture capital fund and a charitable foundation that invests in ethical businesses and finances philanthropic projects.
According to the founder of To.org… "The Throne is a proof of concept, as it can be used to create large structures that are both aesthetic and immensely useful".
The Throne project is an evolution of the Bottle Brick Toilets which To.org installed in the slums of Kampala, Uganda in 2022. They used bricks made from plastic bottles to address multiple needs in the community. This material provides income from recycling plastic waste, while creating building materials for stable structures.
Of course, this is not the only project that investigates the possibilities of sanitation from a sustainable perspective. Remember our article on the ecological toilet that generates energy with your feces, and, in addition, they pay you.
Returning to the field of 3D printing and focusing on the bathroom. A few years ago, and why did you see the evolution? Researchers at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) created what they called the world's first 3D-printed bathrooms.
They were basically small unfurnished rooms 3D printed with concrete material. At that time, it took nine hours to print the small, 1.6 x 1.5 x 2.8m bath. Without a doubt, the evolution presented by the Nagami study is a ten.
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