The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2023–2024
Kohler Loope: a luxury-grade waterless toilet for informal settlements — iF Gold 2024
Kohler's Innovation for Good built Loope, a recyclable, waterless sanitation toilet for informal settlements — and won its first iF Gold with it.
Kohler Co.
What it had to solve
Kohler, the 150-year-old American luxury plumbing brand, runs an in-house incubator, Innovation for Good (IfG), for products with social and environmental purpose. Loope targeted informal settlements where unsafe sanitation is rampant but sewers, land title and government infrastructure do not exist. The brief: a toilet that works in those places and that people actually want to use.
How it works
More than two billion people live without safe sanitation, and the informal settlements most affected have no sewers, no land title and no government infrastructure to wait on. The customary answer has been cheap boxes: functional and upgradable, but so low in dignity that people avoid them. Kohler Co., the 150-year-old American luxury plumbing brand famed for premium faucets and hotel bathrooms, decided its own answer was a design problem, not a charity one.
Inside Kohler's Innovation for Good (IfG) incubator, the NYC design studio built Loope, a container-based sanitation (CBS) toilet: fully recyclable and waterless. Its ergonomic seat positions users for effective urine diversion, which cuts odor and simplifies waste management; the unit plugs into the container-collection services organizations already run in dense urban settings. A geometric pattern of water ripples decorates the lid, per the iF jury, 'emphasizing the importance of water while ironically adorning a dry toilet.'
In 2024 the iF jury awarded Loope the Gold in Product Design — Kohler's first-ever Gold, and one of only 75 among almost 11,000 entries. The jury statement called it 'a great example of design innovation in the service of humanity,' and Kohler framed the award as drawing attention to an issue that affects so many lives. The toilet, launched in 2023 after more than two years of development, targets Africa, Asia and South America, and was conceived in service of UN Sustainable Development Goal 6.
Why it lands
- The jury's phrase 'design innovation in the service of humanity' captures the move: the design made a waste product feel gracious, which is exactly what makes people choose it over the alternatives.
- Urine diversion is the functional kernel — separated urine means far less odor and simpler collection, so the product fits the container-based loops that already exist on the ground.
- The water-ripple lid is the emotional flourish: water 'ironically adorning a dry toilet' reframes a deficit object as a thoughtful one, giving users pride instead of stigma.
- The IfG incubator let a premium brand work on an underserved-market product without lowering its design standard — the same studio, the same care, a different economic reality.
What it did
Loope won the iF Design Award 2024 Gold in Product Design — Kohler's first-ever Gold — one of just 75 Golds among almost 11,000 entries. The jury called it 'a great example of design innovation in the service of humanity.' Chief Sustainable Living Officer Laura Kohler said the award brings 'much needed attention to the issue of unsafe sanitation.' Target regions: Africa, Asia, South America.
What you can take
Design the stigmatized object with luxury-brand care, not down to a price: a water-ripple lid on a dry toilet is wit, and wit is adoption. Dignity designed in beats policy lectured on.
Since then
For IfG, an incubator meant to create 'new business opportunities with a social and environmental purpose,' the Gold proved its mandate could produce work the design world rates rather than charity-ware. Kohler's own take, per Laura Kohler, was that the award brought 'much needed attention' to unsafe sanitation. The project remains one of the few cases where industrial design's top trophy went to a toilet for people without sewers, land title or government infrastructure — proof that the container-based sanitation model can wear world-class product design.
Sources
- KOHLER LOOPE — Container Based Sanitation Toilet (iF Design Award 2024 Gold project page)
- Kohler Co. Captures Prestigious Honors in Global Design: Coveted Gold iF Design Award and 12 Additional iF Design Accolades
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