2024 - To be the light

The design was selected in kibrea, Nairobi, Kenya.Kibera is a slum that was once known for its lack of proper toilets.While many measures have been taken to address people’s need to go to the bathroom, a more serious problem has emerged. Many communal toilets are poorly made (as shown in the picture on the right, some toilets do not even have doors), and many people with bad intentions will rape women while they are in the bathroom.At night, it becomes more dangerous for women to go to the bathroom. Women’s safety and basic physical health are difficult to guarantee due to the lack of street lights, narrow roads and poor sanitary conditions in many surrounding garbage dumps.Daylight is like a talisman for women, but the warm daylight cannot protect them at night, so we use the daylight of the day to turn it into protection for women at night. And in the future, women can be their own light.
The design includes women’s toilets and umbrellas, turning the women’s toilets into shelters for local women to use and rest, and the umbrellas are a continuation of the shelters. Energy storage is carried out through the solar panel roof of the women’s bathroom, and there is a light on the top of the umbrella, which can be used at night after charging on the charging pile in the women’s bathroom.
The women’s bathroom adopts a circulating water system, which places the simply filtered water in the skylight glass interlayer of the roof in direct sunlight for sterilization and then circulates it to the bathroom for use.
The umbrella can be expanded or shrunk by a button on the handle.This can be done by changing the shape and size of the umbrella to suit different situations and for women of different ages and shapes.
When women encounter danger at night, they can open the umbrella and use the button on the handle to activate the flashing light at the top of the umbrella to blind the dangerous person for a short time.The person behind the umbrella can use the umbrella surface to block the light and prevent the flashing light from injuring her.
Compared with traditional slum toilets, women’s toilets can not only use the roof to convert light energy into electricity for use, but also provide more shelter space for women to relax or rest. At the same time, when the woman in the women’s bathroom is in danger or there are some special circumstances, the umbrella can be placed on the roof with a placement frame, and the light can be revealed through the hole in the roof to tell others.Because the size of the umbrella can be changed by the button, it can be applied to different scenes, and when it needs to be placed on the placement rack of the public bathroom, it can be changed to adapt to different door holes to form different doors.
We hope that this design can bring more hope and courage to women, not to be afraid of the dark, brave to be able to light up themselves, light up others, light up the world. In the new era, the power of women will be seen by more and more people and become an indelible light like the sun.