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Designer public bathrooms with a quirky catch
In Tokyo there are now transparent public bathrooms in parks: worth travelling for?
Dear Pirates, today we're taking you to Tokyo. The Japanese capital is no stranger to oddities in the field of health. This lovely country has already given us the renowned heated toilet seat with remote control and a built-in bidet, but someone clearly decided it was time to take it to the next level!
In the parks of the central district of Shibuya — the area with the famous pedestrian crossing that is one of the symbols of the city — there are public toilets that show promise as future tourist attractions.
Part of an initiative to change people's perceptions of public restrooms, The Tokyo Toilet project, aims to produce "public restrooms as you've never seen them before." In fact, two of the projects already completed feature designer public restrooms that are completely transparent when viewed from the outside. You read that right, see-through toilets! Read on to learn more.
Details
What's the trick to convincing someone who isn't a straight-out flasher to actually use this restroom? Toilet walls are made of tinted "smart glass" that becomes opaque when the bathroom is occupied. Simple no?
But why this choice? Besides, of course, making the public restroom experience more adrenaline-pumping, because the user can continually wonder; "what if it suddenly stops working and becomes transparent again?"
Of the project's five bathrooms built so far, both of the transparent ones are the work of the same architect, Shigeru Ban, winner of the prestigious Pritzke Prize. According to Ban, "there are two things we worry about when we enter a public restroom, especially those located in a park. The first is cleanliness and the second is whether someone is inside. Using the latest technology, the outer glass becomes opaque when locked. This allows users to check for cleanliness and if someone is using the restroom from the outside. At night, the structure illuminates the park like a beautiful lantern."
Our advice? If you're passing through Tokyo and decide to experience this, keep one thing in mind: once inside, it's not possible to tell if the glass has become opaque to those outside or not, so it's essential to lock up to activate the mechanism, and cross your fingers that it works!
The project, when completed, will produce 17 new designer public restrooms, each one different from the next — all thanks to the input of 16 different architects from around the world.
We can't wait to see them all come to fruition!