Dwelling
Restroom
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A room with a toilet and washbasin, sometimes with a shower, for personal hygiene and waste disposal.
What it solves
It protects people’s health and water quality. In the humid tropics it needs constant natural ventilation to avoid mold and bad smells.
Today
Design at least one accessible restroom in every home or building, with a wheelchair turning space, grab bars and a door that opens outward. Use low-flow toilets and a high window or a duct that always ventilates.
Common mistake
Making bathrooms so narrow that they cannot take a wheelchair or a grab bar when the person ages.
Tomorrow
Dry toilets and urine-diverting toilets save water where there is no sewer. A clean, open public restroom in parks and bus stops makes the city friendlier for older people and families with children.
Fact The United States accessibility standard requires a clear turning space of 1.5 meters in diameter and a toilet seat between 43 and 48 centimeters high.
Where it comes from
- 1Indus civilization Mohenjo-daro, present-day Pakistan, Bronze Age
Some houses had brick latrines connected to drains. - 2Elizabethan England Kelston, England, 1596
John Harington describes a forerunner of the toilet with a water tank and a flush valve. - 3Industrial era Scotland, 1775
Alexander Cumming invents the S-trap, whose water seal keeps sewer gases from rising.
Masters
- Shigeru Ban The Tokyo Toilet public restrooms, Tokyo, Japan, 2020
He designs public restrooms with glass walls that can be seen through when vacant and turn opaque when the door is locked. That way people know before entering whether they are clean and empty, which gives a sense of safety at night.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Dwelling
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.