At festivals around the world, that scene above plays out.

The men’s urinals aren’t exactly a sanitary walk in the park, but most of the time you can get in and get out without breaking a serious sweat.

Women, on the other hand, are knuiping hard as they inch their ways closer to sweet, sweet bladder relief, weighing up the merits of smashing so many drinks to the face.

If French architect Gina Périer has her way, that’s all about to change. Over to the Guardian:

In a boost for “pee-quality”, her company is rolling out Lapee, which she claims is the world’s first industrially-produced female urinal, at this week’s Roskilde festival in Denmark.

“When we were here on Saturday and Sunday, it was only used by girls and they were so happy,” she said, as she inspected her 48 pink plastic spiral designs. “We were spammed by Instagram messages. They were all saying ‘finally, something for us’, because it’s so degrading for women, the situation of urination.”

The concept is fairly simple. The Lapee takes the idea of a single moulded urinal unit with built-in storage tank and adapts it for women by extending the divider to screen the user off, lifting it up and raising the hole into which you pee to make it easy to hit. A spiral design assures privacy.

Even the name ‘Lapee’ sounds fancy. ‘Just popping off to the Lapee, darling, be back in a jiffy’.

25-year-old Périer founded the company last year with Alexander Egebjerg (that chap above), after the two spent time working at the Roskilde festival as student architects.

By the way, if you’re worried about missing out on that catch-up slash during your toilet visit, fear not:

I would steer clear of direct eye contact, but that’s just me.

More on why the Lapee is a game changer:

With three women able to visit at a time and no door, they claim it takes just 30 seconds to spend a penny, compared to three minutes for a standard cabin toilet, making it six times more efficient. The platform where women stand or crouch is raised so that passers-by can’t peer in and the user can look around.

I love nothing more than a good look around mid-pee.

Thus far, the facilities have received some positive, and some not so positive, reviews:

“You need to be a little bit drunk to do it if you ask me,” said Ida Blomberg, 18. But her friend Sol Grum, 19, approved.

“You know, when you’re drinking you have to pee all the time, and last year all the girls had to pee in front of everyone or wait for half an hour, so it’s very nice,” she said. “Also they are pink, so that’s also a little bit cool.”

Perhaps the most honest assessment of all comes from Périer herself, who just straight up said what female festivalgoers are thinking:

“When you’re a girl and you go to toilets at festivals they are usually covered in shit, so to have a place where you know it’s only going to be pee sounds like the most luxurious thing in the world.”

Truth.

We may never see these at South African festivals, or at least not for a while, but I wish you luck with all your future ablutes.

[source:guardian]