2011-06-08

Project4-Caroma universal design








I'm doing tap, basically my tap has two parts, the main tap and the handle, both of them are stick to the wall.



The main part of the tap is a grab rail with a head where water comes out, I got this idea when thinking of people especially oddly, disable and children having trouble getting out of the bath, combining the grab rail with the tap makes it more connivance for them to stand up in the bath. However, as hot water is going through the tap, the tap itself is hot and touching it can be dangerous, I've made the inside tube isolated from the outside grabbing part to solve the problem. This board shows how people grab the tap using one hand or both hands. My initial design is like this, not coming out of the wall too much but with a long head, then i realized that the long head can be dangerous that people could bump their head on it, so i changed the head shorter so that it is not that dangerous with all the edges rounded off, then i made the space between the grabbing part and the wall larger to make it easier to access.



For the Handle part, it is pretty much the same as the traditional handle but longer for easier access and also less physical effort for children oddly and disable. I'm putting the handle above the tap instead of below the tap so people won't hurt themselves when turning on the tap with hot water coming out. But putting it higher may sacrifice the accessibility, that's the other reason why I made the handle longer. I've also adding the hot water locking system into the handle, it's a red button behind the handle, people can turn it into any angle when pressing the button, but children can just turn it into a preset angle without pressing the button. Or the water won't be so hot when the handle is accidentally turned towards the hot. As the button is behind the handle, children may not see it and play with it, also adults will not having any trouble pressing the button. The cross section shows how the button works.


And this is my tap design, here are some renderings showing how it looks like in the bathroom.