The annual World Toilet Day has a serious purpose: to raise awareness of sanitation and draw attention to the 2.5 billion people who do not have access to a clean and safe toilet.
However most of the toilets we’ve published are designed for the convenience of people in the developed world, including a surprising number of solutions for people attending open-air concerts. There’s even a portable urinal for festival-going girls.
We’ve also featured a few unusual toilet blocks, such as the new golden public toilet in Wembley that aims to “inspire confidence” and “pride in a place”.
This golden public toilet in Wembley, London aims to evoke the days when lavatories were “civic buildings that aimed to inspire confidence and pride in a place”.
With a perforated diamond pattern on its metal facade the Wembley WC Pavilion, designed by architects Gort Scott, sits in a newly landscaped and pedestrianised area and is intended to be “a singular and figurative building”.
The project comes at a time when public toilet provision is declining. “The aim was, after all, for a special building that harks back to the days when public toilet buildings were types of civic buildings that aimed to inspire confidence and pride in a place,” architect Jay Gort told Dezeen.
It was commissioned by Brent Council to develop the public convenience for a busy street in Wembley in northwest London. It consists of four urinals, a separate WC, a caretakers store and landscaped surroundings.
The exterior of the structure is made from a shimmering golden aluminium, which is more perforated near the roof. During the day the perforations filter sunlight into the toilets, while at night the structure appears to light up from within.
“We wanted a material that would allow the building to change depending on the weather and time of day,” said Gort. “On a sunny day, the reflectivity and shade of panels make the most of the faceted form, and then at night the perforations allow the building to glow.”
The architects used a traditional stamping machine to create the angular perforations. “A custom-made diamond-shaped cutting tool was produced after many prototype test sheets that were cut in our office to gauge the scale, shape and spacing of the holes,” he added.
Interior walls are lined with white ceramic tiles. There’s also a rainwater collection tank concealed behind a mirror, which uses recycled water for flushing the toilets.
The building has a four-sided concrete base, but looks like a star when viewed from above. Photography is by David Grandorge.
Here’s some project information from Gort Scott:
Wembley WC Pavilion
Gort Scott won the commission to design some new public conveniences on Empire Way in Wembley after an invited competition by Brent Council. The proposal is a modest, freestanding pavilion that will sit within a new garden and pedestrianised area that has been reclaimed from recent road realignments.
This is an unusual commission given the decline in provision of such services by local authorities. The brief called for a public toilet building, containing 4 urinals, a separate WC and caretakers store and landscaping to the immediate area. Gort Scott won the commission via an invited competition by Brent Council. The client required a building that could underpin the aspirations of the borough in terms of quality design and sustainability and form a key part in the regeneration of the pocket park and mixed area in which the pavilion sits.
The design intention was to produce a singular and figurative building that also related to its context and helps to define a sense of place. Standing over five meters tall the WC pavilion commands a presence at the high point of the surrounding topography and can be seen as walking up the gentle slope of Empire Way towards the Town Centre. Each of the building’s sides is subtly differentiated in response to the specific contexts, whether a busy road or public space. The design was conceived developed through a number of physical models.
The ground floor plan was developed to satisfy the brief requirements in a compact and efficient arrangement. It is based on a simple geometry, derived from a square, which suggests movement or rotation and allowing for a simple repeated construction, to minimise costs while ensuring quality.
The base of the building is constructed from concrete and will stand up to the anticipated knocks and scrapes of heavy use. Above head-height the structure becomes a filigree, shiny metal screen, allowing for light and ventilation without letting views in. The perforated water-cut screen further creates the effect of a glowing lantern during the evening.
The interior of the WC and urinals is robust and elegant: Up to 2.1m above ground, the walls are concrete, and tiled in utilitarian white ceramic tiles. A rainwater collection tank sits above the service room, clad in mirror, disappearing in its reflections of the surrounding perforated screen.
Although a small building the project acts as a showpiece for green technologies including rain water collection for flushing, natural ventilation, and PVs that power the lights, hand dryers and insulated D.W.C.
Client: LB Brent Location: Wembley, London Start date: December 2012 Completion date: May 2013 Construction cost: £245,000 including landscaping Architects: Gort Scott Contractor: Brac Contracts Structure: Price & Myers M&E: Skelly and Couch Planting: Brent Council CDM: MLM
Dutch firm Lagado Architects have designed a temporary public toilet block with wide open sections in the roof so users can sit on the toilet and look up into the sky (+ slideshow).
Lagado Architects designed the Easehouse toilet block for the Singeldingen Foundation, a summer program with a pop-up coffee bar in the playground of Heemraadspark in Rotterdam.
“The open roof reinforces the idea of still being outside while providing the necessary ventilation,” Verhagen said.
“The trees above the roof give a protected and covered feeling and cast shadows into the interior and on the closed roof surfaces,” he added.
The dark green and brown building is split into two toilets, one for adults and one for children, neatly divided by a central entrance and a diagonal step.
The roof is an ensemble of four triangular sections, folding down into a point at the front entrance.
Architects Victor Verhagen and Maria Vasiloglou said they designed the public toilet block to have a low-tech and outdoor feeling.
Designed for use in summer, the building can be easily taken apart and transported.
These public toilets in Japan by Tato Architects comprise a single curved wall sheltered beneath a gabled roof (+ slideshow).
The toilets were installed by Japanese architect Yo Shimada of Tato Architects for visitors to the Setouchi Triennale, an art festival that takes place for three seasons on on Shodoshima Island.
Shimada followed the shapes of local soy sauce factories, where large cedar barrels are contained inside timber warehouses, to create an angular canopy with curved forms below.
“I decided to make the toilet adapt to such surroundings and make it the starting point of a walk by partitioning the space with curved surfaces, as softly as a cloth under a traditional cabin roof,” he said.
The curving steel wall outlines three main enclosures, framing toilets for men and women, as well as one for disabled visitors.
The roof is clad with a mixture of opaque and transparent tiles, allowing daylight to filter into each space.
“The smoked tiles and glass tiles cannot easily be distinguished during the day,” said Shimada. “But the difference appears clearly when night falls and light begins to leak from inside.”
I made a public toilet at Shodoshima Island as a part of the project of Setouchi Art Festival in which I came to participate from this time. The site is in the area called “Hishio-no-sato (native place of sauce)” where pre-modern architecture of soy sauce making warehouses remains collectively most in Japan. These warehouses are authourised as registered tangible cultural property, where soy sauce has been made still in the old-fashioned formula. Framing of a traditional cabin and large cedar barrels on the floor are the characteristic scene.
I decided to make the toilet adapt to such surroundings and make it be the starting point of a walk by partitioning the space with curved surfaces as softly as a cloth under a traditional cabin roof.
Due to circumstances on the site the construction had to be completed in about two months. I tried to shorten the construction period by making the curved surfaces with steel plate and by, while making them at factory, proceeding with the foundation work at site at the same time.
I adopted tile roofing following nearby houses. Actually I roofed with smoked tiles and glass tiles in mosaic pattern as these are compatible with each other thanks to the standardisation, and I used FRP plates for the sheathing to make the place light as if sunlight came in through branches of trees.
The smoked tiles and glass tiles cannot easily be distinguished during the day, from outside and may be mistaken for the same as the unevenness of the aged roof tiles of the neighbourhood. But the difference appears clearly when night falls and light begins to leak from inside. The internal space will give feeling of being guided on while walking along the softly curved surface.
I think I may have realised such a place as looks more spacious than actually is and as being secured while being relieved.
This outdoor urinal by French design studio Faltazi slots into a straw bale to recycle pee from festivalgoers into compost.
L’Uritonnoir is a cross between a urinal (“urinoir” in French) and a funnel (“entonnoir”) and was designed by Faltazi as a tidy and eco-friendly method of outdoor sanitation.
To set up a urinal, L’Uritonnoir is pushed into the side of a straw bale and fixed in a place by looping a strap through its top holes.
As the bale collects liquid, nitrogen from urine combines with carbon in the straw and starts a process of decomposition.
After use, the bale can either be taken to a local composting facility or left on the spot for six to 12 months to become compost, before being scattered on the soil or used as a planter.
The urinal comes in two versions – the flat-pack polypropylene DIY model and the stainless steel Deluxe model.
Production starts in June and the Uritonnoir will debut at French heavy metal festival Hellfest that month.
Uritonnoir, french noun. This term refers to a sanitation facility intended to urinate in standing position. An uritonnoir is a hybridisation of two everyday products, an urinal and a funnel (literally in french, “urinnoir” et “entonnoir”). This system is used either used in public spaces during festive events (slotted into round bales) or in private gardens (slotted into small straw bundles). L’Uritonnoir is an utensil filling a volume of straw (carbon) with urine (nitrogen) in order to compost it during a 6-12 month period and convert it into humus.
Two models:
DIY model. Polypropylene version. Cut from a polypropylene sheet, this model is delivered flat. Then it is folded and put together thanks to closing tongues. You can customize this model with silkscreen printing.
Deluxe model. Stainless steel version. Designed in stainless steel, this model will resist climatic challenges.
Collective use for festival configuration:
Are you an open-air festival organiser? Are you wishing to adopt environment-friendly solutions? Do you consign glasses but would like to do more?
L’Uritonnoir is a simple and efficient solution providing a sanitation facility to festival fans and converting urine into compost. Once it is transformed into humus, it will naturally enrich surrounding soil and plants. After the round bale is positioned, simply slot into your Uritonnoirs and set them together with a strap! Your mission is to raise festival-goers’ awareness to dry urination, rinse water saving and urine upcycling. Setting Uritonnoirs up will relieve sitting toilets from men’s number ones, therefore your facility will be kept optimally clean. You may customise your Uritonnoirs by silkscreen-printing the vertical zone with pedagogical messages (the interest of straw and urine equation) or with your event’s graphic identity.
Once your festival is over, different solutions are available to manage with your round-bale soaked with urine:
» Municipal Garden Services transports it towards the closest composting facility and keeps it for horticultural use. » The round bale stays and composts on-the-spot. Six months later the manure can be used by local farmers. The following year, it can be used as a giant planter to be enjoyed by new festival-goers !
Personal use for garden configuration
Do you use to go for a number 1 in the back of your garden? Do not waste this valuable golden fluid by sprinkling inappropriate surfaces! Convert your urine into humus instead by “uritonning” in a small straw bundle. About six to 10 months only are required before spreading this amazing composted manure around the base of your trees and plants.
Raise your friends’ awareness to this simple and essential gesture that respect nature, saves water and upcycles urine!
1. 3D-Printed Aston Martin Though the story called for a precious 1960 Aston Martin DB5 to be decimated, producers of “Skyfall,” the latest Bond installment, saved the rare icon by combining 3D printing with creative modeling. Propshop Modelmakers Ltd. employed a Voxeljet VX4000 large-scale printer to produce a series…
Here’s a project description from Studio Pacific Architecture:
Kumutoto Toilets, Wellington, New Zealand
These public toilets are located at the Synergy Plaza in the Kumutoto Precinct, situated at the northern-most end of Wellington’s waterfront.
As well as taking into account practical considerations such as security, hygiene and vandalism, the brief was to create a structure with a sculptural form, something iconic, highly visible and unusual that was also well integrated into the visual and historical context of the surrounding precinct.
To be seen in the round, the design comprises two elongated, irregularly curved forms, instantly recognisable from all key pedestrian approaches and terminating a sequence of spaces and elements along the laneway.
These organic forms, eye-catching and instantly memorable, are suggestive of crustaceans or sea creatures, as if the structure was a kind of fossilised husk that had been discovered and inhabited. Recalling the waterfront’s shipping past, they evoke the crusty saltiness of the sea in the smooth levelness of the precinct, clinging to its surface like barnacles to the underside of a boat.
Along with adding a playful element to its surroundings, this aquatic reference also links back to the origins of the name Kumutoto, a former pa and ancient stream running under the reclaimed land.
Each form contains one accessible public toilet, with one of the two also including cleaning facilities. Their robust concrete construction is appropriate to the surrounding maritime environment. A metal rainscreen, painted the brick red of the neighbouring sheds, ties them into the heritage context and enhances their visibility.
While they contrast with the linear architecture of the surrounding buildings, again contributing to their visual distinctness, the curves of the new structure also echo some of the ornate detailing on the nearby sheds. Cantilevered ‘tails’ provide natural ventilation.
Architect: Studio Pacific Architecture Project team: Stephen McDougall, Bret Thurston, Guy Marriage, Peter Mitchell Client: Wellington Waterfront Ltd Location: Wellington, New Zealand Size: 26.5m2 Completion: September 2011 Materials: Concrete, steel
Bidet-style, warm-water toilets take to the skies on ANA and JAL
Dimming windows, exotic lightweight materials, improved fuel economy, mood-setting dynamic LED lights, massive overhead storage—there is no shortage of impressive amenities aboard Boeing’s long-awaited 787. Perhaps our favorite innovation to round out the offerings on the new plane (it made its debut on the 777-300ER) comes courtesy of Japanese carriers All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines: bidet-style washlets. The toilets in these business class washrooms shoot streams of warm, aerated water to keep flying derrières happy from Tokyo to London.
While washlets are frequently seen on Japanese toilets and are increasingly popular in homes and high-end hotels around the world, the 787 is one of the first commercial planes capable of implementing them. Four functions (back, soft, bidet and stop) are accessible on a knee-side panel for the washlets, which were collaboratively designed between Toto, Boeing and Jamco. Due to water restrictions, the cleaning operation can only be run twice for each use—hopefully adequate to satisfy airborne bottoms. Once finished, the lid closes automatically; both airlines also offer motion-controlled faucets. ANA’s restroom features a window, while JAL decks out theirs with a full-length mirror.
This small rusty cabin designed by Oslo architects Manthey Kula provides public toilets along one of Norway’s tourist routes.
Completed in 2009, the Roadside Reststop Akkarvikodden is located north of the Artic Circle and replaces a former rest stop that was swept away in strong winds.
The welded Corten steel walls of the building are screened with glass on the inside to prevent rust rubbing onto the clothing of anyone using the facilities.
There are no windows on the walls, apparently so that visitors can have a break from the scenery.
The project is situated in Lofoten, along one of the National Tourist Routes in Norway. There are eighteen such routes in Norway, all chosen for their spectacular and characteristic landscape. The facilities for the tourists that drive along these roads; such as rest stops, viewing platforms and links to local points of interest are carried out by architects and landscape architects with the purpose of offering an experience of both nature and design. By now 6 routes already have Tourist Routes status and 12 more are in the planning. The project will be finished by 2016.
The Roadside Toilet Facility at Akkarvikodden is built in connection with existing rest stop designed by landscape architect Inge Dahlmann/Landskapsfabrikken. The commission given to Manthey Kula was to design a toilet facility that could replace an existing structure that had been lifted off its foundations by the strong winds from the Atlantic Ocean. Lofoten is located at the 67th and 68th parallels north of the Arctic Circle in North Norway. The site for the project is extraordinary. The road runs on a narrow plateau between the mountains and the sea. Were the rest stop is the plateau widens out and one experience entering a space between the mountains from where the view to the horizon is very powerful.
The design had two aims. One was to make the small building very heavy so it would not be lifted off ground. The other was to make interiors that shut the scenery out. The first objective was of course very pragmatic, a direct response to the history of the building’s predecessor. The other objective was more obscure. The experience of the place, mountains and sea and the ever-present coastal climate is very intense. The restrooms were conceived to present a pause from the impressions of the surrounding nature, offering an experience of different sensuous qualities.
Click above for larger image
The rest room is open only during summer season thus the building did not have to be insulated. Initially it was planned in concrete. However, after having checked the work of some local mechanical industries the designed changed to a body of welded plates. The structure of the small building is not unlike the structure of a ship: welded steel plates locally reinforced with steel flanges – every part specially designed for its specific use.
Click above for larger image
The foundation and the two walls that supports the stainless steel sanitary equipment are cast concrete. Glass panes are 12 and 20mm thick. Doors are built in 5 mm stainless steel plates. Walls and roof are made of 10mm corteen steel. To prevent rust from discoloring the clothes of the visitors parts of the walls are lined with glass panels. In the smallest rest room one glass panel is mounted in the ceiling. In this panel one can see the reflection of the horizon.
German studio TULP Design have designed new loos for Munich based advertising agency Webguerillas that encourage doodlers, narcissists and greedy toilet-roll users.
In one cubicle lots of marker pens attached to the ceiling with magnets inviting users to scribble over the walls.
Another lavatory features an abundance of mirrors that give the impression of a grander space, or just the chance for the user to admire themselves from every angle.
A ceiling filled with toilet paper lit from above provides a reassuring sight to anyone who’s ever feared a workplace sanitary shortage.
Tulp Design also designed the company canteen, which we featured on Dezeen back in May 2010.
Other stories about toilets on Dezeen can be found here.
Photography is by Oliver Jung.
Here’s a little bit of text from TULP Design:
A Tribute to toilet-wall-scribblers, vain people and toilet paper.
For Munich based Webguerillas TULP created three restrooms. The marker installation (attached with magnets) invites staff and clients to design the room. Numerous mirrors give a new sense of space and the blue lighted paper sky takes care of toilet paper replenishment.
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