The PT 2.0 Public Toilet Design Competition prize presentation ceremony was held today (September 18) at CIC-Zero Carbon Park in Kowloon Bay. Co-organised by the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) and the Architectural Services Department (ArchSD), the competition aimed to promote proper usage of public toilets and collect innovative design ideas for the construction of public toilets.
The Permanent Secretary for Food and Health (Food), Miss Vivian Lau; the Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene, Ms Irene Young; the Director of Architectural Services, Ms Winnie Ho; and other guests officiated at the ceremony and presented the awards to the winners.
Speaking at the prize presentation ceremony, Miss Lau said that the participants had showcased their talents with their creative and human-centric designs, in which not only new construction methods were applied, but also smart technologies were incorporated. Their ideas struck a brilliant balance between aesthetics, cost-effectiveness and buildability. She added that the competition would help promote proper usage of public toilets and a culture of care for the public facilities.
The competition had an Open Group and a Professional Group, with 50 and 61 entries received respectively. Participants were required to submit entries infused with modular design ideas for three public toilets of different scales and site contexts. Winning (Top 3) Prizes, three Commendation Prizes and five Finalist Prizes were selected by the jury panel for the Open Group competition. There were two rounds of competition for the Professional Group. Four shortlisted Winning Entries and six Commendation Prizes were selected in the first round of the competition. Each shortlisted awardee then participated in a design thinking workshop from the Toilet Tells: Rediscover Public Toilet programme before he or she submitted a detailed design proposal for the second round of evaluation, in which the jury panel set the ranking of the top four prizes. The awarded entries and awardees are listed in the Annex.
The First Prize Entry in the Professional Group was inspired by siphonophores. The agile modules can flexibly adapt to different site contexts, while also presenting a novel image for a public toilet.
All entries of the competition will be on public display from October 1 to 10 at the Multi-purpose Hall, 3/F, City Gallery, 3 Edinburgh Place, Central. Members of the public can also browse the entries at the competition website (www.pt2designcompetition.com).
Alongside the competition, the FEHD and ArchSD also co-organised the design thinking programme Toilet Tells: Rediscover Public Toilet, in which a series of workshops were organised to understand the needs and concerns of stakeholders in regard to public toilets, including users of different ages and abilities, designers, scholars and architects, as well as toilet management, operation and repair staff, so as to formulate proposals to improve public toilet services.
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