Lavatory Engineering
Last weekend while at the San Diego Wild Animal Park I had the unfortunate experience of visiting the front entrance restroom. Being near the front gates of park this particular restroom must see 10’s of thousands of visitors each year.
This was one of the most disgusting public restrooms I’ve visited in a long time, and that’s really saying something coming from me.
Regardless, this experience sparked some healthy thought, How could design improve the functioning of this restroom? There must be people out there in the world who make a living designing public restroom technology, right? I bet I’d be pretty good at it and to help out the wild animal park, I’m going to offer my first restroom design consulting free of charge.
- The ratio of stalls to urinals in the men’s restroom is way to high. This will cause urinal shy men to partake in the privacy of the stall while completely disregarding any attempt at accuracy.
- Track down the guy who’s supposed to be monitoring the waste bins. You will most likely find him smoking marijuana in the back of the parking lot or perhaps flirting with the cute girl checking peoples tickets. Just a guess, not an accusation.
- Replace the paper towels with an air dry machine. I know most people don’t like them, but many don’t wash their hands and a large number simply run their hands under the water to look like they washed and then proceed to use 3 towels to dry their “washed” hands.
Doing some follow up research after my little rant, I found some excellent resources for those looking to make a difference in the world.
Ladies: I have never been in a women’s public restroom, but I would bet they have just as many design issues. Please help the world and share some of your ideas, comment below. Also, for those of you who have never given much thought about choosing a urinal, please see the following link The Urinal Game.
I have to agree that there can be a better way to make bathrooms more efficient, clean, and Eco friendly. In efforts to cut down paper towel costs and waste - why not add hand sanitizer dispensers? This would help those lazy people who don’t “REALLY” wash their hands and it would save the environment a little…