Is Design Going Down the Toilet?

A Fascinating Retro-Fit

 When "nature called" at a restaurant, what I found was design literally in the toilet*.

*In Australia toilet = restroom.

 On entering the restroom - the first thing I noticed that the toilet was very close to the door when I opened it.

A troublesome predicament

 I thought, "There's something wrong here!", but couldn't tell what it was at first. The room was dimly lit, so it took me a couple of seconds to work out what I was seeing, but the shots were pretty good from my mobile camera and really makes it evident what I’m talking about.

  I noticed something between where the toilet is, and the door:  Primarily that the door looked really close. But then I looked at the edge of the door. Did you see it in the image above?

Is it Damage or "Design"?

 Initially I thought the toilet door had some sort of damage. But no, it was deliberately cut out. And cut with what looks like a hack saw. You can even see how the first cut above was a little too high or so the tradie thought. You can imagine – the designer going “They’ll notice that cut, I should make it a little lower” ha ha.

Damage or design?

 Even more amazingly, with the toilet lid down, you can't open the door to get access to the toilet. So that first retrofit cut on the door, the mistake was actually the right one. With that cut, the door could at least fully-open with the toilet lid down. The “designer” didn’t double check…

Why the Big Fuss?

To me it looked like the door was put on after the cubicle was installed, which would be the sensible thing to do. And it had to close inward due to the entry into the bathroom itself.

  It led me to ponder...I guess design consideration was only made for the clearance to the toilet after the install. Once the door was mounted there was nothing else to do but make a modification. And boy, is that modification a piece of work.

 Why am I making such a big deal out of this? Let’s ask these questions: 

• How long did it take to cut out that clearance recess? 
• Were any other trades delayed (painter, tiler etc)? 

 It looks like the painting happened before the install as the recess was not painted. To me it seems that the owner missed this or may care too much about what their customer's think. As a customer, seeing things like that, gives the impression of tardiness. What's going on tin the kitchen if this is how they look after the bathroom?

Herein lies the problem

  Perhaps measurements weren't taken accurately for the toilet install, or the room was retrofitted on the fly by trades’ people (or tradies). The main thing for me was that modifications onsite were needed and delays were caused. The result was a poor functioning door and the idea of a door for privacy was rendered useless without the modification.

  So what does an engineer do when faced with this issue? It can be catastrophic from an engineering and manufacturing perspective, especially when we are dealing with machinery or equipment that needs to be installed and commissioned in a cost and time-effective manner.

The Right tools

  Using the right tools designed to work with manufacturing in mind is paramount. What are the right tools?

 When I went to technical college, we got a glimpse of CAD, but the tools were mostly pencil/pens and tracing paper - believe it or not (for those that were born in the late 80's and onward). We had exercises to create either the relative 2D views or sketch out the 3D isometric based on partially complete 2D technical drawings in our texts that were drawn in 1st angle or 3rd angle projection like in the image below:

Source: Engineering Drawing 3rd Ed. A.W.Boundy

 Those days were fun of course, you really had to work your brain to work out projection lines, and show hidden lines, break out views etc. but the amount of time it took was long. At the time, you accept this as the most efficient/affordable tool. Of course we want to get things done faster, easier and better; minimise or remove errors.

2D Computer Aided Design (CAD)

 So then 2D CAD came along. Now on a computer screen we can delete lines, scale them, move and copy. I use both 2D a.k.a. CAD (describing two dimensional Computer Aided Design) and 3D Solid Modelling Design to get work done. 

2D CAD can assist you in being able to accurately represent at full-scale, the components and machines you are building. Depending on the complexity of the job, or my clients', I might choose either, or a combination of a 2D and 3D CAD package.

 Sometimes I am supplied DWG files (2D format); depending on the job, I’ll be expected to use portions of or the whole file to create or update a product. To edit, copy or modify the original drawing it is handy to have more than a DWG viewer to read the drawing.

2D detailing in Draftsight

 If I am using a 2D CAD package, then being able to view and edit is great. But even more-so when I want to create a 3D part - I can copy and paste directly from the 2D CAD directly into the 3D package.

 In this video by the team at SOLIDWORKS you can see how to take a 2D DWG file, edit it, then bring it directly into a 3D mechanical design system that shows how can utilise both 2D and 3D tools in harmony. 

Coverting 2D to 3D in SOLIDWORKS

Where does 3D CAD come in?

 So why is it important to be able to visualise your models in 3D? In the image below you can see the finished product (as mentioned in the video above). 

 Not only can we visualise, but we can take several components and assemble them like you would on the shop floor. There are videos by SolidWorks on Youtube to see how it’s done. 

A 3D Solid Model Generated from a 2D DWG

 Finally once assembled, you can test whether the parts will interfere - you can tell right away whether parts will collide! Here’s another video showing interference detection.

 In the first example I made the assumption that a digital tool was not used, but there are many factors that attribute to these types of errors: Sometimes the drawings are not clear, the parts lists are incomplete or maybe the specifications were wrong. Other times the drawing is clear but the floor plan is incorrect or incorrectly measured up.

Closing Note

 Having quality work reflects on you and your establishment, let alone the danger if we put this into an engineering perspective.

 Those factors aside - I think this article demonstrates that you're better with CAD, than without. And Computer Aided Design is certainly not going down the toilet, far from it. We’ve heard all about 3D printing and additive manufacturing, CAD on mobile, CAD in the cloud. Technology is continuously improving and new ideas are being forged.

 With CAD, we are able to visualise designs, test our parts and assemblies and make informed decisions about the design process, but rushing into anything will probably get you into trouble.

 If you have a project or an idea and you’re wondering how to get started or get it to the market, contact me.

Happy Designing!