Introduction
According to Mark Roemer Oakland, most people take bathrooms for granted. However, in many parts of the world, a good bathroom is still considered a luxury. And modern architects and designers are coming up with new ideas to design bathrooms that could benefit people with different types of disabilities and make them appropriate not only for gender but also for people of different religions, races, and even ethnicity.
The Architecture
Here are a few ways how the architecture of today is creating better bathrooms for everyone:
- Walk-in showers – Walk-in showers are a modern phenomenon in bathroom design that allows the elderly and people with disabilities who cannot stand for long or sit properly in a bathtub to enjoy a good time while in a shower. Walk-in showers have an average height of 4-5 feet and include a bench where you can sit. The water-tight door creates a seal that ensures no water leakage so that you can bathe without any worries. Some walk-in showers can be so large that they can accommodate people in wheelchairs too.
- Specialized bathrooms for disabled people – Specialized bathrooms for disabled people are pretty common in Japan. Such bathrooms come with handrail grabs and bars for showers, wheelchair-accessible commodes, electronic toilets, signs and symbols in Braille, and more. These simple things ensure that nobody feels left out.
- Bathroom designs that help to save the environment – Our world has a limited number of natural resources, and it makes sense to use them as conservatively as possible. Many bathrooms in western European countries feature bathroom designs that recycle wastewater in order to be used for landscaping and gardening. Plus, many modern bathrooms are designed in a way that allows more natural light to enter them during the daytime. As a result, such a design makes it possible to switch off the use of artificial lights during the daytime and save electricity.
Finally, the dirty and unclean water runoffs from drainage and sewage are connected via pipes to many sewage treatment plants so that the water can be purified for reuse.
- Unisex bathrooms with stalled solutions – Many countries have started to adopt neutral, genderless, and unisex bathroom designs. Usually, such bathrooms feature different entrances for men and women bath they merge inside and connect to a unisex setup inside. However, many unisex bathrooms feature separate places for both genders for washing, grooming, or eliminating.
A survey has concluded that most people don’t mind unisex bathrooms and such bathroom designs reduce waiting time and queue. For instance, a person who wants to use the bathroom for elimination would not have to stand in the same line that just wants to groom a little. Furthermore, such bathroom designs are also cheaper to set up.
Conclusion
According to Mark Roemer Oakland, modern bathroom designs may not be accepted fully in many parts of the world, but change is occurring as more people are becoming considerate towards the elderly and disabled.
