The latrine building is made up of four stalls with four dry composting toilets and two urinals, a concrete sink, a hallway to separate the two, and a solid waste collection chamber.
The primary structure of the building consists of two parallel lines of supports carrying a bamboo roof. The South line is a continuous bamboo beam carried by bamboo posts sitting on a concrete slab while the other one is a 2’ high bamboo vertical truss spreading the load it is carrying on a rammed earth tire retaining wall located on the North to the building. Four evenly spaced bamboo trusses span between these two lines of support.
The trusses have a triangular shape and are 4’ high by 18’ wide. The truss members are linked using plywood boards and bolted connections. Perpendicular bamboo members span between the top chords of the trusses and are topped with corrugated metal panels above.
The stalls and hallway are founded on the concrete slab mentioned above which is mainly ground bearing except on its very southern part where it is spanning above the solid waste chambers located below. These chambers are made of exterior tire walls, an interior cob and ecobrick wall, and concrete columns and beams supporting a concrete roof. The chambers present a 4” thick concrete and cob slab extending down at a 30° angle and a concrete roof including metal chimneys preventing the presence of humidity.
The walls of the stalls are 7’ tall and 4'' thick. They are framed by the bamboo posts carrying the roof structure and additional free-standing ones. The walls are made of ecobricks (plastic bottles filled with trash) wrapped in a casing of thin metal grillage (usually called “chicken wire”) which is in its turn covered by a plaster finish. The doors are made of bamboo and framed with timber posts.
In order to improve the lateral stability of the building the two outer roof trusses are laterally restrained at their top by bamboo diagonals. The diagonals bring the lateral loads back to a continuous timber beam spanning above the stalls walls from where they are transmitted to the ground floor structure which is braced with bamboo diagonals.
The dry compost toilets are partitioned to create a smaller front section for urine that leads underground to the East to be diverted to a irrigation system, and a larger back section for solid waste that travels into the associated chambers. Concrete, tire, and ecobrick stairs lead to the collection chambers in the back where the solid waste can be accessed and used as fertiliser.
The sinks are supported by bamboo beams resting on the North retaining wall. Within the mortar covering of the tires are ecobricks supporting the PVC pipes bringing water from four 250-gallon ferrocement water storage tanks located on the North of the retaining wall. The greywater coming from these sinks is then brought to the same irrigation system as the urine coming from the toilets.
4 Stall Dry Compost Latrine
The latrine building is made up of four stalls with four dry composting toilets and two urinals, a concrete sink, a hallway to separate the two, and a solid waste collection chamber.
The primary structure of the building consists of two parallel lines of supports carrying a bamboo roof. The South line is a continuous bamboo beam carried by bamboo posts sitting on a concrete slab while the other one is a 2’ high bamboo vertical truss spreading the load it is carrying on a rammed earth tire retaining wall located on the North to the building. Four evenly spaced bamboo trusses span between these two lines of support.
The trusses have a triangular shape and are 4’ high by 18’ wide. The truss members are linked using plywood boards and bolted connections. Perpendicular bamboo members span between the top chords of the trusses and are topped with corrugated metal panels above.
The stalls and hallway are founded on the concrete slab mentioned above which is mainly ground bearing except on its very southern part where it is spanning above the solid waste chambers located below. These chambers are made of exterior tire walls, an interior cob and ecobrick wall, and concrete columns and beams supporting a concrete roof. The chambers present a 4” thick concrete and cob slab extending down at a 30° angle and a concrete roof including metal chimneys preventing the presence of humidity.
The walls of the stalls are 7’ tall and 4'' thick. They are framed by the bamboo posts carrying the roof structure and additional free-standing ones. The walls are made of ecobricks (plastic bottles filled with trash) wrapped in a casing of thin metal grillage (usually called “chicken wire”) which is in its turn covered by a plaster finish. The doors are made of bamboo and framed with timber posts.
In order to improve the lateral stability of the building the two outer roof trusses are laterally restrained at their top by bamboo diagonals. The diagonals bring the lateral loads back to a continuous timber beam spanning above the stalls walls from where they are transmitted to the ground floor structure which is braced with bamboo diagonals.
The dry compost toilets are partitioned to create a smaller front section for urine that leads underground to the East to be diverted to a irrigation system, and a larger back section for solid waste that travels into the associated chambers. Concrete, tire, and ecobrick stairs lead to the collection chambers in the back where the solid waste can be accessed and used as fertiliser.
The sinks are supported by bamboo beams resting on the North retaining wall. Within the mortar covering of the tires are ecobricks supporting the PVC pipes bringing water from four 250-gallon ferrocement water storage tanks located on the North of the retaining wall. The greywater coming from these sinks is then brought to the same irrigation system as the urine coming from the toilets.
Full Process -
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