About Project Sammaan


Project Sammaan provides a new, holistically reimagined model for urban slum sanitation facilities in India.


Project Sammaan is a sanitation project that seeks to rethink the current model of facilities serving urban slum populations in India. Business models, architectural designs, communication interventions and other aspects of these facilities will be reviewed to provide a safer, more hygienic user experience in the hopes of enacting open-defecation behavioral change while providing a utility to an underserved population.This partnering of seemingly disparate entities (design, government, and empirical research) makes Project Sammaan a truly unique innovation effort. These groups are united by a shared goal of re-imagining current models and practices to have a more significant impact on sanitation and hygiene issues in India:

  • The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides the resources to fund innovation with scale as the primary goal.
  • Government ownership and funding enables adequate infrastructure, community engagement, and utilities’ access.
  • The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) rigorously evaluates facility viability and effectiveness through Randomized Control Trials (RCTs)
  • Quicksand utilizes its user-centered design principles to ensure the facilities meet end-user needs and are readily adopted by communities

The Potty Project

Project Sammaan was born out of the research Quicksand undertook as part of the Potty Project, an in-depth design research study focused on understanding three things:

  1. The end-user experience at community toilet facilities within urban slums in India.
  2. End-user perceptions, attitudes, and mental models around sanitation and hygiene.
  3. The supply side aspects of community sanitation in slums including things such as pricing, operations & maintenance, caretaking, and business models.

The in-depth design research study aptly titled Potty Project examined various aspects of sanitation and hygiene, generally, and aspects of community sanitation of India’s urban slums, specifically. Potty Project was a years-long, in-depth design research study that focused on end-user attitudes around sanitation and hygiene, their experience at community toilet facilities within urban slums, and “supply side aspects of community sanitation.