Lighting; a) none b) activated by pushbutton for a short time inadequate for most visits c) adequate
(I experience all of these at places I visit regularly)
all facilities working some facilities taped off or cubicles locked out of use all facilities out of order
no one else using them some other people there but plenty of room still packed and hunt for free space queuing up outside the entrance
As I get older one realises how few public toilets there are and you get caught in the situation of going to a cafe to use the toilet so you buy a drink which leaves you back in the same situation an hour later!
Hand drying. Best provision is none. Towels spread disease, blowers waste energy and make a fearful noise. Hands become spontaneously dry in under 2 minutes.
Under Cubicles you missed off "Half height" under option c. Have experienced these in Interstate rest stops in Texas, believe they were a symptom of their homophobia.
10 should get "just urinals" as an option, see those metal pee trees e.g. behind St Martin-in-the-Fields, or the pop-up uri-lifts, and IanVisits reported on Victorian versions not too long ago. Paris trialled rather less attractive versions of them last year.
There is a massive issue in gender inequality in toilets. My guess is (but please correct me if I'm wrong) that you've not experienced a huge amount of it, but there's always a queue at the ladies, *because* there is almost never enough provision for them. I wonder how the Design Museum fared on that front.
Do try the toilets in the The Geological Society in Burlington House on Piccadilly. The urinals are constructed out of a geological rock which is wondrous to behold.
15g: tap runs only when being pressed down. So you can't wash your hands by rubbing them together; you have to shake each one in turn under the stream.
14c - on a family visit to New York in the early 1990s I remember many public facilities had no cubicle doors at all, I believe as a response to local drugtaking issues; as a shy teenager it took a bit of getting used to!
13h "something else to aim at": as used in Munich airport, where a fly has been added a short distance above the drain hole. Initially I thought it was a real one, until closer inspection revealed it to be a picture added to the urinal.
In a German cafe I visited last year the cubicles had clear glass doors which went opaque as you turned the lock. They were reminiscent of the glass loo outside the Tate Modern a few years ago with one way glass that took some courage to use.
15i(iv) should be broken out into volume categories. There has been recent research showing that some of the louder models are dangerous for children's hearing. My son is autistic with sensory issues and cannot cope with loud hand dryers. It has resulted in him refusing to enter some public toilets regardless of how much he needs the toilet. It helps if the hand-dryers have an accessible power switch on the wall.
Another thing that should be called out is whether there is a waste disposal facility. With two children, I am quite adept and changing a nappy in a cubicle with a child balanced on my lap if thre are no changing facilities (sadly a common problem for men). Womens toilets almost always have sanitary disposal facilities, but there is rarely anywhere to dispose of a nappy in the gents.
15g Tap only runs when pressed (as comment above) or tap runs for just a second or two after release - I end up using toilet paper as a plug to get sufficient water in the basin.
15i Unless the new high speed drier, most air driers are totally useless. Use wads of toilet paper as a towel instead.
Both solutions assume that there is actually any paper!
14i Paper jammed in dispenser / unable to find end
Above-floor surfaces
Large flat areas for suitcases and luggage
Horizontal ledges and shelves
No horizontal surfaces (to make illegal activity less convenient)
Water
Water bottle filler
Drinking water tap
Non-potable
14. Cubicles - Exit pipe can accept...
Typical paper-based products of all kinds
Toilet paper only (macerator)
14.k.iv Hover over button (these are great, not enough of these around though I recall the National Gallery has them).
14.m I'm assuming these mean sanitary waste bins. If a cubicle doesn't have these, they're not unisex. Normal waste bins don't count.
Generally, not very happy at the recent trend to convert dedicated female facilities to gender neutral - looking at you Barbican and Old Vic. Letting men use the ladies but not putting sanitary bins and baby changing facilities in the male facilities is not gender neutral. I'd be interested to see the equality impact assessment - if there even was one done - for these developments.
A macerator in a public toilet system would generally be no no.
Macerators are often provided behind toilets in Portakabins where there is no easy access to a convenient sewer connection. Think of a macerator as a form of liquidiser, but with more blades and more powerful.
Anything material based, such as wipes or sanitary towels, will not get 'liquidised' and usually just end up jamming the blades or blocking the outlet. The end result is that pressure builds up in the unit and something eventually gives, coating everywhere and the person using it in brown stuff!
Additional options for 14d:
- Broken
- Entirely absent
Also needs a category for being able to get in and close the door behind you without having to contort yourself into unnatural positions, or press up against a dubiously-hygienic wall.
Those two-foot gaps between the door and floor of cubicles in Texas are standard all over the USA. Whenever I've pointed this out to American friends (who do not seem quite as fascinated by lavatorial options as we are), they have no idea why. But it must be something to do with being able to see whether or not there is more than one occupant and if so, whether or not they are using the facilities for a convenience which was probably not intended by our Victorian forbears.
Even in Texas, I'm not sure you can say that is necessarily homophobic, but I don't know whether female lavatories in the USA have the same door gap as 'men's rooms'.
The most creative 13h I've seen is in a pub in Glasgow, where the urinals are decorated with the names of the landowners behind the Highland Clearances; signage invites you to pay them the respect they're due.
No mention in 14 of the metal ones you sometimes see in parks, unsalubrious pubs, and presumably prisons
No mention of the provision (or absence) of a Bath. This applies to those facilities referred to as "The Bathroom", a term used widelt, but erroneously, by our friends from America.
Drying hands reminds me of some smart graffiti I saw by a hand drier some years ago: "Rub hands briskly under warm air stream. Then dry hands on trousers."
Location /number of soap dispensers: None, one per sink, one in awkward location
I find often that they are an afterthought of the design - they’ve left no space between the bottom of the mirror and the basin so the dispenser has to go over by the dryer and you have to carefully carry the soap back to your basin
Also for 15j add:
- too close to sink so you set it off while washing and you emerge looking like you’ve wet yourself (pub in Chichester)
14.c.1 Cubicle door style
UK - flush fitting
US - 1 inch gap between door and jamb (why? Why??)
None - a bar in Austin, Texas had the toilet “hidden” behind a 1 foot wide, 4 foot high divider. It might as well have been actually in the bar.
Sometimes a wonderful turn of phase from DG sticks in my mind. This time it's 'icky knob'.
Thanks!
Then again, the option of encountering a shiny one might be misconstrued.
Much of this - ickiness type issues aside - is an indication of how many decisions have to be made when designing a facility, plus the myriad choice of materials, colours, finishes, etc. It doesn't just happen...
