WASHROOM HYGIENE
WEIRD AND WONDERFUL WASHROOMS
See-through cubicles, holograms and urinal waterfalls are just a few of the wacky enhancements that can be found in today’s away-from- home washrooms. Jamie Wright, of Tork manufacturer SCA, looks at this phenomenon and finds out what lies behind the search for that elusive ‘wow factor’ in today’s toilets.
Upmarket hotels and restaurants are by definition designed to impress. And when visiting the washrooms of such a facility one would expect the standards of hygiene and cleanliness to be as high as those of the rest of the premises.
But managers of some smart venues are going one step further and turning their toilets into a talking point. And in the light of the current obsession with social media, perhaps this is unsurprising.
When visiting the luxurious washrooms of a five-star hotel it is not uncommon to find clusters of guests taking ‘selfies’ against the elegant murals, soft lights and plush furnishings. In fact it is very much in the interests of facility managers to introduce this ‘wow factor’ to their washrooms to create a buzz and help to build their brand.
Washrooms that echo the theme of a hotel, bar or restaurant can provide the user with a fun experience while extending the organisation’s brand values throughout the premises. Take New York’s Way Station bar for example. This has a Doctor Who theme and the single toilet cubicle is – you’ve guessed it – a Tardis police box.
In the same city, the washrooms of the Sakagura saki bar have been given the external appearance of huge saki barrels. Closer to home, the toilets of the Shaka Zulu South African-themed restaurant in London are decorated with zebra prints and feature life-sized safari animal statues.
34 | Tomorrow’s Cleaning December 2015
‘Talking point’ washrooms are not necessarily a new phenomenon, however. The gents’ at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California, have been renowned since the 1980s for their urinal wall made of real rock. The wall has a waterfall function and washroom visitors need to break a beam of light in order to activate it. This novelty loo has become a landmark over the years and tour buses crammed with passengers – both male and female – arrive every day to take a peek inside the gents’.
In the late 1990s, Austrian-born artist Hundertwasser gave the public loos in his adopted home town a quirky facelift. He used ceramic tiles, bottle glass windows, mosaic tiling and cobblestone flooring to brighten up the washrooms in Kawakawa on New Zealand’s North Island. Hundertwasser died in 2000 but the public toilets have since become part of his legacy and are now a tourist attraction.
Some washroom providers use their facilities to provide shock value – whether this is an altogether pleasant experience or not. One such toilet can be found at the trendy California Katsuya sushi restaurant where women have been startled to see an eerie hologram geisha face appear fleetingly in the mirror as they wash their hands after using the loo.
Also designed to shock is a spate of washrooms where the cubicle walls are effectively one-way mirrors that allow guests to see out while others are (hopefully) unable to see in. These were
pioneered in a number of New York bars and one reappeared at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. The ‘Loo With a View’ was installed by international development charity WaterAid to show festival-goers what life is like for the 2.5 billion people around the world without access to a safe, private toilet. As if visiting a festival loo was not already traumatic enough.
But at least the Glastonbury toilet came with a clear message. Other quirky lavatories leave the washroom visitor feeling frankly perplexed. For example there is no obvious reason why the airside ladies’ washrooms at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport should have been given a seaside-theme.
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