The PPlanter is a scalable, reconfigurable public urinal and sink that uses modular biofilters to treat the wastewater.

The PPlanter takes on the challenge of public urination, which arises in a variety of urban contexts from beer gardens to addressing the needs of homeless populations.  The PPlanter is a scalable, reconfigurable public urinal and sink that uses modular biofilters to treat the wastewater.

This project celebrates San Francisco’s progression towards mobile and outdoor services including food trucks, beer gardens, and parklets, and provides additional infrastructure to support and enhance this trend. Beyond serving the needs of people using these outdoor services, our project takes on the challenge faced around 5M of public urination: turning a nuisance into a nutrient for hungry bamboo biofilters.

PPlanter is one tool in an urban eco-sanitation infrastructure toolbox we are creating. The prototype will serve to provide valuable feedback in further developing the design of future, more permanent installations such as a composting toilet project in partnership with the City of SF and the North of Market Tenderloin CBD. With the prototype, we hope to gain insight into the durability of systems as well as various psychological and sociological design parameters. The inspiration for PPlanter and other urban eco-sanitation infrastructure tools came out of Hyphae Design Laboratory’s Tenderloin National Forest Residency and series of projects in SoMa and the Tenderloin with the Luggage Store, 5M, Intersection, CBDs, and city agencies.

Project by Julia Schmitt , Mohit Gupta, Leslie Tom and Brent Bucknum