The Urban Wetland Pissoir: A Functional Art for Raising Awareness of Infrastructure Challenges in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Abstract

Natural waste recycling processes are often out of sight and out of mind of the general public, especially as they relate to the treatment of human waste. Wetlands Work!, a social enterprise^① based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, designed the Urban Wetland Pissoir (UWP) to encourage awareness of natural waste degradation processes, promote low-tech ideas for treatment of urban waste flows, and link function to aesthetics. The UWP was set up during Phnom Penh’s Our City Festival 2012, as a functioning prototype of a self-contained urine treatment system. A simple private cubicle made of bamboo and thatch is used by one individual at a time. The urine is conducted into an adjacent see-through pool, filled with beautiful local wetland plant species that use it as a nutrient. The message for users: urbanization is not a separation from nature’s ecological functional and aesthetic services.

Keywords

Constructed Wetland / Urban Sanitation / Urine Sanitation / Wetland Education / Pissoir

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press