Roman Public Toliets

Public toilets were a propionate part of the Roman society; everyone sitting together using the bathroom was a normal way of life. In their culture it was more of a social aspect than a daily need. "According to O.F. Robinson, Ancient Rome: City Planning and Administration, public bathhouses were comfortable places, where one might sit and read, or otherwise "amuse oneself sociably, hoping for [dinner] invitations.” [1] The concept of the bathroom being a private place did not exist and it was not only a public aspect of life it was an extremely social event.  In addition to the public use of the bathrooms the concept of toilet paper did not exist, instead there were communal sponges that everyone used and shared and by this the privacy level was also lessened. However, to the people at the time the bathroom practices were a normal thing. Furthermore at the public urinals the waste produced by the toilet was collected regularly and sold to fullers for cleaning wool, etc. The concept on toilets as a private matter that is hidden from others is a typical concept today but without roman innovation of water systems and sewers this would not be possible today. Roman bathroom practices were different than ours today but they were the ones that directly informed our practices today. 

Sources: 

[1]   http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/hygienebaths/a/102310-Hygiene-In-Ancient-Rome.htm

Spluch: Chongqing's Openair Public Toilet Julie Russi

These open air toilets/urinals in China have caused a big controversy because of how very public this porcelain palace is. This design definitely reflects how big they want to shine light to this taboo subject. This not only is very open but the fact that it is so bold and colorful really shows that they wanted it to be seen and known about. It pokes fun using sculptures of lips, butts, and even what looks like to be female faces. While using the toilets one can also enjoy music and even sun bathe while using them. The composition of it all is completely made so that there is absolutely no privacy and visitors can even get a bird's eye view from a hill.

Although most of it is mischievous fun as the designer Lu Xiaoqing says a lot of different responses have been given about it. The feedback was broken into female, male, and the elderly. Most males enjoyed it and thought of it as a fun and new. Women on the other hand said they were often overcrowded because of the women use of the toilet being different than the males. And the elderly found it offensive and thought having a female face as a urinal very unacceptable.  

Lu Xiaoqing says, "that the toilet culture should be celebrated and as major joy of life it should not be suppressed in the environment." Whether some people agree or disagree with his statement is very true that this subject that is taboo and has been tried to be kept as private as possible to different extents over time and now many are trying to shine light to one of the most essential needs of human life.

http://spluch.blogspot.com/2007/06/chongqings-openair-public-toilet.html

roman public toilets

public items within the bathing area were a very prominent feature in ancient rome. one of the main items was the communal toilet. when we think about the word communal, it generally means that everybody is able to use it. and when we think of the word public, it generally means out in the open, visible to everyone. so when we put the two together, we're generally talking about using a toilet in front of everybody, that everybody has used at one point in time. the toilets usually don't have seats, as well as they don't tend to be the type that flush either. most of the time, when searching for a public toilet, they are not easy to spot. the toilets don't have seats, so sometimes they're just holes in the ground or just holes on square blocks. when using these toilets, you also have to position yourself correctly, because otherwise, it could get very messy. speaking of keeping things clean, ancient rome did not have toilet paper. instead, they had a communal sponge. now think about that for a second. a sponge is much more personal than just sitting on a toilet. the sponge had to be thoroughly cleaned after every use for it to remain somewhat sanitary.



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500 word blurb- Savannah Relos

The portable toilet was invented in the 1960’s by George Harding, who worked for Poly- John Enterprises. He was co- founder of the company along with Ed Cooper and George Hiskes. Poly- John is one of the leading manufacturers of polyethylene toilets, sinks and tanks, many of which are portable like the original Portable toilet.  Portable toilets are also known as Porta- Potties, Porta- Johns, Porta- Loo, Tidy John and even Portable Sanitation Unit. They are made out of standard molded plastic in gross colors such as dark pea green, faded blue and dark grey. These toilets are generally three by seven feet, approximately the size of your standard coat closet, and feature a rounded black plastic seat with a chemical bath for your wastes to drop into. The trick to using these bathrooms is to not let the blue chemical water to splash back up on you.  The chemicals used in porta potties can include formaldehyde, disinfectants like ammonium and ethanol and other smelly components designed to mask the smell of everyone else who has already used the toilet before you. There is place for the toilet paper to sit but most of the time it is just a cardboard tube. Afterwards you can diligently clean your hands with the hand sanitizer provided that often makes your hands smell for at least another hour. Porta Johns also don’t normally have a light inside because it is impractical to hook up every toilet to a massive power cord. This means if you need to go to the bathroom and you are at a carnival or haunted trail, you might want to go before dark because not only is it very dark inside, the carnival or trail workers like to mess with you and bang on the walls while you pee. Anyone can order a porta potty from several different companies and Porta Potties are seen at construction sites, carnivals, and haunted trails, along sightseeing paths such as the Grand Canyon, etc. These toilets are often seen as disgusting places but it puts a whole new spin on the saying “When you gotta go you gotta go!”

Transparent Public Toilet by Anna Lance

This toilet is placed in the middle of a street in Lausanne, Switzerland. The structure is made up of eleven glass sides, designed in 2008. This restroom is placed in a very urban area. The design of the restroom relates to the building across the street from it. The walls are partly made of liquid crystal glass, so at the push of a button the person occupying the bathroom can make the walls opaque. The liquid crystal glass wall is transparent under electric tension, showing its functional and clean interior to the people walking past, but by the press of a button the walls becomes out of tension, causing the glass to go dark, which ensures privacy for the person using the toilet. 

Although you could say this restroom can become pretty private, illegal activity can occur within this fully enclosed space. The designer, Oloom, took this into consideration somewhat when building the structure. If there is too much activity within the space or not enough the walls become transparent again, exposing its insides once again to the outside world. “Partying” or moving around a lot couldn’t occur within the space while the walls were out of tension within the liquid crystal glass. This could still lead to issues in certain places. I think the location of where you would place a public restroom such as this is important. The cost of this toilet also ties into the reason it wouldn’t be the best idea for certain areas. The glass walls could be easily broken. Oloom states “An innovative concept to deal with insecurity problems whilst playing with transparency.”

This toilet fits in our exhibit because of its innovative way of thinking.  It deals with the battle between how private this public toilet actually is. Although it’s enclosed is it really “all that private.” You can actually alter the amount of privacy just by the push of a button!  

Japanese Squat Toilet

Japanese squat toilets : unknown : early periods to present : wood/ceramic : Japan

The traditional Japanese squat toilet, also know as the Asian toilet, is very different than most Western toilets.  Most of these toilets are made of porcelain, although other materials can be used such as wood and stainless steel.  Rather than having a large bowl like Western toilets have, the squat toilet is very shallow, however they both flush very similarly.  There are two variations of the squat toilet: one is where the toilet is sitting on the ground and the other is when it is raised up about one foot.

            While the creator and exact time the squat toilet is unknown, there is evidence that there was a drainage system created in the capital of Nara around 710-784, which consisted of a ten to fifteen centimeter wide stream where the natives would squat while putting their feet on either side of the stream.  The earliest toilets were also created around this time that were similar to outhouses.  Later, pit toilets were more common, which were very easy simple to create and would also help fertilize the land.   This practice, however, became much less common after World War II.  Throughout history, Japan has been much more hygienic than Europe and other Western countries, where sewage was often dumped on the streets.  Western-style toilets and urinals became more apparent in Japan towards the beginning of the 20^th century, but became even more common after World War II.  In 1977, the sale of Western-style toilets exceeded the sale of the traditional Japan squat toilet.

            The squat toilet, included with plumbing, did not appear until after the Tokyo earthquake in 1923, when the Japanese realized hygiene and a more efficient and clean sewage system would reduce diseases.  It is still largely used in Japan, however Western-style toilets have become more prevalent.

    The Japanese squat toilet is almost like a urinal that has been placed on the ground.  The color is usually white porcelain, which is very similar to Western toilets.  It is a smooth texture, and the size is also about that of a Western urinal.  It is very symmetrical, having both side of it look very similar to one another.  Since it can be raised on a one-foot platform, this does at some depth to the toilet and creates a different experience for the user.  For the most part, it is in the shape of a rectangle that has a shallow, smaller oval-like hole that is cut out of it.  Some may include a curved, raised front or some other sort of embellishment.  There will occasionally be some texture, but if it is apparent it is very minimal.  For the most part, they are very smooth and lack value and contrast. 

            This toilet is important to our “Journey to the John” exhibit because it not only shows a different style of toilet that is produced from a different history than many other toilets, but is also from an Eastern country, rather than a Western.  Since our exhibit deals with toilets throughout time as well as places, the Japanese squat toilet is a good representation of both of these things.  Even thought it is somewhat similar to Western toilets in terms of texture and color, it is still uses a very different method.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_Japan

http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Japanese_toilet_-_History/id/1526320

http://www.ehow.com/about_7523039_traditional-japanese-toilet.html

image:

http://inventorspot.com/articles/japanese_toilets_toto_5847

Portable Toilet

Most people realize that hygienic sanitary conditions cannot be guaranteed when they are in an outside environment, such as going camping, hiking or being involved in a project work that needs to be moved between two, or more places. The neglect of providing hygienic sanitary conditions can lead to creating many health problems. Under this circumstance, we have to come up with a new idea to solve this problem, thus the Portable Toilet comes into the picture.

           

            The first portable toilet dates back to the mid-fourteenth century B.C. In Egypt, a wooden stool with a large slot in the middle for use with a pottery vessel beneath it was discovered in the tomb of Kha. Until the eighteenth century, the portable chamber pot, a slightly more modern variation of this first portable toilet, was the most commonly used lavatory facility. In 1886, Thomas Crapper created the first flushable toilet featuring a water tank placed high above the toilet bowl to actually flush out the contents of the bowl, rather than merely dilute them. The modern plastic portable toilet has been manufactured since the 1960s. Inventors have combined the portability of the more ancient lavatories with the sanitary benefits of the modern toilet to create a contained system that is also compact, lightweight, and transportable.

           

            The main component of the facility is light-weight sheet plastic, such as polyethylene, which forms the actual toilet unit as well as the cabana in which it is contained. The portable toilet is formed into a box-like structure and the top sheet contains an opening for placement of the toilet tank which with a pump form the portable sewage system  and are fastened with screws, nails, rivets, bolts, and hinges. A chemical supply container and inlet tube are also equipped in the facility.

           

            The  reason why we choose the portable toilet as an artifact in this exhibit because its appearance solves the sanitary problem when people have to be involved in  an outside project or a camp. By glancing over the evolution of the toilet, from the deep cesspits of the Saxons to potties of the medieval times, from Henry VIII’s portable toilet to Victorians' privy, the toilet was changed with the functional demand. Though, the portable toilets cannot give the identical comfort as inbuilt toilets in homes, they can replicate most of the functions of home based toilets. On the other hand, portable toilets also have commercial advantages. Take an outdoor industrial event for example; the portable toilet is preferred among supervisors of outdoor projects who must not only meet the demands of providing a toilet, but must also meet the workers demands to have a hygienic, sanitary, and efficient toilet, because it satisfies both requests. Furthermore, portable toilets are becoming more and more frequently used, and as a result, the services they provide meet many economical requirements and can be seen as quite beneficial in the industrial world.

           

            The portable toilet facilitates people's lives as well as improves the cleanliness, and it marks a foot print on the evolution of the toilets. This is mainly due to its’ convenience and hygienic characteristics that people benefit greatly from it, which to some extent, also promotes the development of economy.

Generic Western Public Toilet: Caitlyn Lyle

The Generic Western Public Toilet is just that – a generic public toilet and it’s what we, as westerners living in the United States see on a daily basis.  A classic ceramic toilet with stalls for privacy.  These types of toilets give you the option and make it very possible for you to use it without touching any surfaces (theoretically) and give you your own secluded space where you can do your business in peace.  When people go into public stalls like these, they will open doors with their body weight, not their hands, flush the toilet with their foot, and open the door back up with a paper towel and throw it away before their hands could even think about coming in contact with any surfaces.  The stalls are standard in the United States and allow for you to have your own personal space, even though it is confined to a tight area.  These bathrooms try to make the public as private as possible, unlike many other restrooms around the world.  However, it’s not necessarily an interesting experience in these bathrooms and they are usually composed of a sterile color palette.  People either get in and get out, or use these spaces as conversational area because it can provide for a more private area of the building than what is beyond the doors.  The atmosphere provides for a more private feel than what may or may not be outside the doors…which depending on the situation, can either intimidate people or allow people to relax and have a place to themselves and get away from reality for a second.  Although these spaces are generic and somewhat bland, the context in which they are placed makes for a dynamic atmosphere that is more than meets the eye.

Artifact Blurb for Ashley Bennett and the "Don't miss a sec" toilet

“Don’t Miss A Sec” toilet

Exploring the construction of sexual identity through architecture, Monica Bonvicini focuses on the gendered nature of the building environment. In using her research to create large scale sculptural art, she provokes modernism. Evidence of her approach and design success in seen in the “Don’t miss a sec” toilet. Placed in Messeplatz in Basal, Switzerland in an exhibition center, this toilet is definitely the “Loo with a view”. Placed inside of a transparent glass, the toilet can be used without losing sight of what is happening around you. From the outside, the toilet room looks like a structure of mirrors, but from the inside one can look through a fully transparent 360 degree window of the chaos and world around them. The toilet inside the structure is made of stainless steel and is usable today. However, this piece is more than a public restroom facility but a work of art as well. Though this is a very creative design, it does pose some flaws. During the daytime the transparency mechanism works fine; no one is able to see inside the “toilet room”. But, at night if someone were to peek into the mirror they would have clear sight as to what is happening on the inside of the structure.

This toilet appropriately fits into our exhibit as an artifact because it represents the “journey of the john”. It shows how far the toilet has come over the years. From outhouses, to a creative piece of usable toilet art, the toilet has made huge improvements over the years. This is just one example of this concept in looking at more modern times in design and innovation of public restroom facilities. Using the toilet is no longer only considered being a dark, smelly, dungy experience apart from the world, but perhaps becoming a part of your everyday life by placing it on the outside city grounds. This new relationship being a joint experience; one can continue to be a part of the atmosphere around them without having to leave it for the restroom. It no longer is just a place to “get the job done”, but will challenge ones curiosity and bravery. It also plays with peoples comfort levels and how comfortable they are using the bathroom in specific environment change. For some this may be a cool experience and for others it may be ones worst nightmare. What do you think?

Exhibit Floor Plan and Key

Blurb: Urilift System

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/19/urilift-the-disappearing-public-urinal-and-we-do-mean-public/

      The Urilift system is just one example of contemporary outdoor public latrines which have reached heightened popularity in Europe during recent years.  This system in particular has been designed particularly for its function rather than its form, but that does not mean it was created without aesthetics that are also ergonomically encompassing.  For example, the theme of curved forms and rounded edges appeal to the human form and comfort which is necessary for the Urilift’s users.  

      The Urilift system was created for patrons of local bars in Europe to have a proper place to relieve themselves whilst traveling home at night.  This leads to the systems most unique and functional aspect which is its hydraulic system.  The Urilift remains hidden during the day and normal traffic hours, but every night an attendant lifts it out of the ground by remote to present them to the streets.  This open design remains in slight controversy, but the users who would otherwise use the street are probably not inclined to complain.  

      Some other hidden systems that reveal themselves at nighttime have doors, which have caused more problems than solutions.  Such criminal activities like prostitution and drug dealing have occurred around those less exposed systems.  This lends another unexpected achievement to the open design of the Urilift system, security of equipment.  

      The main material of Urilifts is stainless steel which lends easy maintenance and durability to the system and hinders attempts at vandalism.  Coloring and decoration is sure to change with each location, but the general form is stainless steel which is a simple yet not unbearable way to have a widespread contemporary appeal.  Another functional design element is the systems top covering which is changed from location to location to mimic the street/sidewalk treatment in order to camouflage it.

      According to Urilift BV, the inventors of the Urilift, the system saves money (from prevention of damage to entertainment districts by unruly patrons), conserves water (can function from rainwater), is non-disruptive to local residents and retailers, can function during winter months (from heated pipes), and is easy and quick to install.  Due to the first systems popularity and effectiveness Urilift BV has developed several other systems including one suited for female and male use.  As the Urilift becomes more widespread it is expected to be common sight in many major cities including those in the US and Canada.

Revised Artifacts

Edit: Urilift Public Toilet System material is actually stainless steel, date is 2000, and location is Europe.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/19/urilift-the-disappearing-public-urinal-and-we-do-mean-public/

http://www.gunandgame.com/forums/attachments/powder-keg/32955d1277931031-outhouse-poem-old-outhouse-double-seater.jpg

http://www.jotsandsots.com/Portals/95056/images/green_porta_potty.jpg

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4326340/ns/world_news-weird_news/t/new-way-view-london-toilet/

http://www.toxel.com/tech/2009/05/27/transparent-public-toilets-from-switzerland/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_Japan

http://findingrest.blogspot.com/2011/04/public-restrooms.html

http://spluch.blogspot.com/2007/06/chongqings-openair-public-toilet.html

http://heritage-key.com/rome/vespasian-roman-emperor-toilets-and-humour

Artifacts

List of current artifacts.

Mosaiko

Portable Toilet

Mirror Toilet

San Raphael™ K3607

Squat Toilet

Henry VIII's Portable Toilet

Chamber Pot

Cleanest Toilet In The World

Roman Public Toilets

graphics group

our mock up!

thumbnail [poster ideas]

thumbnail!

my contributions: 

-contributed to signage in graphics group

-contributed ideas and helped brainstorm designs in graphics group

-thumbnails

personal blog

My Thumbnail

My idea of signage has a slight humor to it just like our concept. Using the title of the exhibit to show the "journey" will make people smile while showing the concept very well.

My contributions:

I am a part of the graphics group where i have started on working on a final poster design and organized the signage ideas from the group and am starting to decide which one we are going to use. As well as participating in the graphics group i have took the task of gathering the proposal and all the thumbnails for Fridays class as well as editing small details within the proposal itself.

Kristy Stroud - kastroud.blogspot.com

JOTJ Thumbnail Sketches

Matthew Weikert - vikert.blogspot.com

thumbnails for poster

my blog: http://anpokas.blogspot.com/

Proposal Group Contribution

• Gathering everyones ideas and refining them so that one main idea for the exhibit is channeled.
• This helps give the graphics and signage groups the ideas to formulate their designs for the exhibit 
• When composing the exhibit since we have a clear idea of the concept we will able to help put the pieces together in a way that it is clear for the viewer of the exhibit. 
• We will also be able to guide/support the graphics and signage groups so that again the idea of the exhibit reads as one.

Julie Russi - juru09.blogspot.com

Caitlyn Lyle - caitlynlyle.blogspot.com

poster ideas

I am a really big fan of very minimal, simple posters. To me, they advertise very well. They are very dramatic, and draw a lot of attention. Especially with the use of high color contrast. I think using this technique in our posters, will benefit us greatly. Also incorporating humor into our poster is very important considering our topic is somewhat humorous to begin with.

photo credit 1

photo credit 2

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photo credit 5

journey to the john poster

this is a general idea of what we thought the poster could be like.

not too complicated but cute so people get the humor to it.

this is a simple design that incorporates the title of our exhibit.

we are going to keep editing it, but we just want people's opinions

on what we have so far.

support signage:

- we plan on using signage for circulation, labeling artifacts, information

throughout the exhibit, and introducing the exhibit.

description of other things we would like to include:

- using floor graphics to influence circulation: a wall near the entry way,

that has a roll of toilet paper, and on each sheet, there will be a map of

the exhibit to lead you through the space.

- poster

graphics group

Alex Pokas 

Kate Ewen

Kristy Stroud