Credit: Pierre Papet
Innovation, fundamentally, has been about the new and improved. But some recently introduced ideas take us back to an older way of doing things, reversing technological advancements that have led us, somehow, astray. That’s the premise behind things like the Paleolithic or caveman diet and organic agriculture.
Three students from the University of the Arts London—Sam Sheard, Pierre Papet and Victor Johansson—are applying this same line of thinking in their redesign of the modern day toilet. Their new version, the “wellbeing toilet,” is an award-winning concept from the most recent Toilet of the Future Competition, organized by plumbing supplier Dyno-Rod. The design is the end result of comprehensive research, which had the students considering everything from space toilets to how to best relieve ourselves in the wild.
The wellbeing toilet features built-in screening systems that could be used to analyze urine and other waste matter to check for biomarkers, indicators of diseases such as diabetes and kidney disease and even nutritional deficiencies. It could also test for pregnancy. But perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of this re-imagined fixture in our lives is its ergonomically-friendly shape, which encourages users to fold their legs up and squat, rather than sit.
The commode is carefully molded to gently encourage people to scoot up their legs, so that their posture rests in more of a 45-degree angle, rather than the conventional 90-degree sitting position. To achieve this, the toilet seat is reconfigured to sit atop a raised platform. This design allows people to subtly transition to what was apparently a previous habit proven to be healthier, and it does it in manner that still accommodates what most are used to.
“The biggest challenge was the fact that people don’t even like to talk about the subject,” Pierre Papet says in an email. “The discomfort of talking about as well as doing it the previous way was probably the reason why squatting disappeared as a ‘normal’ posture in the rest of western society.”
Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/ideas/2013/12/reinvented-futuristic-toilet-extolls-the-health-benefits-of-squatting/#ixzz2nZTzsgRO 
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