project: toilet
Public Toilets and Urban Equality: A Systemic Design Approach to Inclusive Public Space in Tallinn
Master's Thesis, University of Lapland
✦ Challenge
The starting point for my thesis was a simple but under-asked question:
How can we improve the public toilet system in Tallinn to create a more inclusive and equitable urban space, particularly for women and other disadvantaged groups?
How can we improve the public toilet system in Tallinn to create a more inclusive and equitable urban space, particularly for women and other disadvantaged groups?
This question emerged from early conversations and observations, which revealed that public toilets — while seemingly mundane — are a vital part of how people experience dignity, care, and inclusion in the city.
As my research unfolded, I found that while Tallinn does have public toilets, they don’t fully serve the city’s residents. The system is fragmented, poorly maintained, and unevenly distributed, prioritising tourists over locals and summer visitors over year-round needs.
Women and other disadvantaged groups are especially affected. Cleanliness, safety, accessibility, and reliability are all concerns, and many participants described avoiding public toilets altogether. This contributes to a cycle of underuse, distrust, vandalism, and closure. Toilets become invisible, neglected, and disconnected from urban planning and civic care.
The issue isn’t just technical. It’s systemic, emotional, and cultural. Public toilets in Tallinn aren’t recognised as essential social infrastructure. They’re managed reactively, disconnected from broader city systems, and absent from inclusive design discussions.
Tallinn toilet typology map showing existing toilet types and their perceptions by residents
Participatory workshop with Tallinn residents mapping the current and desired public toilet system
✦ Approach
I approached this issue through a systemic, participatory, and design-led process. Rather than isolating visible failures, I explored how Tallinn’s public toilet system functions as a whole — how governance, responsibility, cultural narratives, and personal experiences interact to shape both provision and use. The process was iterative and responsive, with each stage shaped by the perspectives of those involved.
The research combined field observations, participatory workshops, cultural probes, and expert interviews. I began with “toilet safaris” to document the condition and context of existing toilets across the city. These observations informed the design of two workshops: the first focused on mapping the current landscape and imagining desirable futures, while the second, more intimate session with women living in Tallinn, centred on story-sharing, emotional experiences, and identifying practical needs.
Cultural probe - take-home booklets distributed during the workshops
Participants also received cultural probe booklets to complete at home, which surfaced further associations, journeys, and personal reflections. To understand systemic barriers and responsibilities, I conducted semi-structured interviews with representatives from the city and NGOs.
Insights were synthesised using tools from systemic design, such as gigamapping, which revealed connections between fragmented responsibilities, patterns of avoidance, and emotional responses. The gigamap was not just a visual artefact—it became a thinking tool that made visible the disjointed relationships between residents, maintenance staff, city departments, and private actors.
To interpret the dynamics behind these connections, I analysed reinforcing story loops—cycles in which neglect leads to distrust, which then reinforces underuse and further neglect. Drawing on Causal Layered Analysis, I examined how these loops are sustained not just by poor planning, but by deeper assumptions: the idea that toilets are shameful, burdensome, or someone else’s problem. Toilets became visible not when present, but when they failed.
Story-loop diagram visualising two intertwined dynamics:
- Maintenance–Vandalism Spiral: Insufficient maintenance after vandalism
increases vulnerability to further damage, accelerating the decline of toilet conditions
increases vulnerability to further damage, accelerating the decline of toilet conditions
- Visibility–Trust Spiral: When toilets are physically or socially invisible, they are
perceived as unavailable, reinforcing distrust and avoidance
perceived as unavailable, reinforcing distrust and avoidance
Causal Layered Analysis of public toilet provision in Tallinn
Adapted from Inayatullah, 1998.
This layered perspective allowed me to step beyond surface problems and to consider what values and cultural assumptions might need to shift for meaningful change to occur. It became clear that Tallinn’s public toilet challenges are not simply operational flaws but are deeply rooted in how public space, care, and infrastructure are culturally perceived. This realisation shaped the opportunity statement that guided the next stages of my design exploration:
How might we create visibility, trust, and a feeling of ownership towards public toilets so that they become genuinely accessible and inclusive for all residents of Tallinn?
This adapted Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) model shows how niche interventions — like the People’s Toilet Map, Award, and Prototype — can challenge dominant practices and narratives over time. (Adapted from Geels, 2002)
✦ Outcome
The final synthesis revealed that public toilets in Tallinn are treated as technical add-ons, rather than as civic infrastructure essential to inclusive urban life. This invisibility has tangible consequences: it limits mobility, reinforces gendered burdens of care, and quietly excludes residents from full participation in public space.
Based on the systemic patterns and leverage points identified earlier, I developed three connected interventions that respond to different parts of Tallinn’s public toilet system. Rather than solving everything at once, they are designed as small, reinforcing steps – each opening space for the next. They engage different layers of the system: infrastructure, information flows, trust, narratives, and participation.
The People’s Toilet Map — a participatory platform allowing residents to document, evaluate, and reclaim knowledge of the toilet system
The People’s Toilet Award — a symbolic campaign to publicly recognise dignified, well-maintained toilets and shift perceptions of care
Public Toilet Prototype— a conceptual design for an inclusive, multifunctional toilet space that invites rest, trust, and civic presence
Each intervention responds to specific leverage points: improving information flows, rebuilding trust, strengthening positive feedback loops, and shifting dominant mindsets. Rather than solving the “toilet problem,” they open up space for reframing how we talk about and design shared urban infrastructures, starting from the most overlooked ones.
The Public Toilet Prototype - axonometric view. The prototype for a multifunctional public toilet that demonstrates what accessible, inclusive, and community-valued toilet provision could look like in Tallinn
