Urban Toilets
Project
Competition, Toilet
Location
Free
Year
2026
Designers
İnci Shoainia, Emil Shoainia
Project name
FIELD CARE NODE
Degree
Honorable Mention
Field Care Node is a mobile sanitation module designed for seasonal agricultural worker settlements where permanent water and sewage infrastructure is absent, insufficient, or unable to respond to temporary population growth during harvest periods. The project addresses a repeated condition in agricultural landscapes: workers live close to fields and greenhouses, yet remain distant from safe, clean, and reliable sanitation facilities. Instead of treating the toilet as a secondary technical object, Field Care Node frames sanitation as an architectural act of care, visibility, dignity, and infrastructure.
Field Care Node responds to this condition as a compact and deployable micro-infrastructure unit. It is not a conventional public toilet block or a generic portable WC cabin. It is a self-contained service module that brings essential hygiene infrastructure directly into temporary settlements. The unit combines an open handwashing area, two WC cabins, one simple shower cabin, clean water storage, greywater collection, blackwater management, and service connections within a single elevated structure. This organization allows the module to operate independently where fixed infrastructure is missing or unreliable.
SPATIAL CONFIGURATION
The elevated platform at the heart of the module, along with its surrounding open, semi-open, and enclosed spaces, is treated not merely as a technical utility zone, but as an integrated, space-generating system. Beginning at the shaded threshold defined by the fold-down canopies at the entrance, the layout moves through the open handwashing area toward the private WC and shower cabins; gaining rhythm through moments of compression and expansion, it offers the user a sheltered transitional experience. While the translucent ribbed shell on the outer envelope filters daylight into the interior, the warm integrated lighting emitted throughout the night transforms the structure into a visible lantern that provides orientation and safety in the midst of the dark settlement.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND SITE
Positioned at the challenging threshold between temporary worker settlements lacking infrastructure and fertile agricultural lands, Field Care Node functions as an interface connecting two distinct conditions. Rather than making direct contact with the ground, its elevated structure lifts the unit above, protecting the interior from mud, dust, and uneven terrain while transforming the volume beneath into an active technical service zone for tanks, pumps, and plumbing installations. With its rounded capsule form and humane scale, the structure avoids exerting a dominant presence on its surroundings, existing instead as a responsive micro-infrastructure that integrates without harming the land and can be dismantled and relocated when necessary.
PROGRAM AND GROUND STRATEGY
Programmatic elements are configured as nodes where hygiene and service functions are ordered in a logical sequence within a single compact structure. The open handwashing area serves as a focal point for communal interaction and quick usage, while the WC and shower cabins are articulated as more private interior spaces attached to this core; clean water, greywater, and blackwater systems are managed separately within the lower service layer. In this configuration, the ground is not merely a surface to walk upon, but an infrastructural substrate enabling a controlled service cycle; thus, even in temporary areas without permanent sewage systems, a sanitation network worthy of human dignity is physically realized.
