May as Well Enjoy Yourself

Hip Bathrooms

My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.

- Erma Bombeck

The ice-filled urinal at Mantra in Boston

by Katy McLaughlin

You go to some restaurants for the food, others for the ambience. But at some places, the highlight of the night is a trip to the bathroom. The men's room at Mantra in Boston features a cube-shaped, ice-filled urinal. Stylish, but the restaurant had to put up signs "to indicate to people where they should do what." In an industry where basil crème brûlee ceases to shock and amaze, perhaps a fabulous toilet is the next competitive frontier. One joint offers a one-way mirrored bathroom that lets patrons spy on their diner dates from the comfort of the commode. The restaurant's name: Peep.

Unisex cubicles at Bar89

Restaurant	Design Concept	Features
Mantra Boston	"Supposed to question one's basic feelings about privacy in the bathroom," says a restaurant spokeswoman.	Stall walls look like mirrors from the outside, but the person on the inside can watch others primping. The men's room has a stainless steel urinal in a cube shape with ice in the basin.
Bar 89 89 Mercer Street New York City	"Every place has their hook," says manager Daniel Rabiner. These designer bathrooms - just made for extroverts - amaze even jaded New Yorkers.	Unisex cubicles with transparent doors that fog up and become opaque when closed. (The door lock turns on a light that shines at an angle and the special glass frosts over.) Immaculate.
Peep New York City	A high-style take on an interrogation room.	From inside the bathroom, patrons can see everything going on in the restaurant. But from the outside the wall looks like a mirror.
40/40 6 West 25th Street New York City	Best bathroom to show off the Bling Bling; rap star Jay-Z’s new sports bar is named for baseball players who have hit 40 home runs and stolen 40 bases in a single season	Four unisex cubicles are enclosed in a giant mirrored cube; there are 4 gleaming chrome basins; 4 limestone walls display 4 flat-screen televisions - sports fans don't miss a thing...
The Happy Camper Corner Dunny and Bradstreet Central West Antarctica	Outhouses look grim, but they're relatively warm and - no wind inside!	The good news - they smell better than most outhouses.

The Happy Camper

A small part of the public urinals of Rothesay, Isle of Bute,
just off the west coast of Scotland

Virgin Potty Talk

Kisses! The new Sexy Urinal by Bathroom Mania, as seen at the JFK Virgin Lounge.

by Paula Conway

Even though they allow for high-volume servicing and back-in-a-flash trips to the john, the point-and-shoot-a-stinky-deodoriser-cake oddity known as the men’s restroom urinal has been, for women, a constant enigma. But nothing will prepare you for the men’s room in the newly-designed Virgin Airways Clubhouse in New York’s John F Kennedy airport, Terminal 4: urinals shaped like a woman’s mouth, dolled up with red lipstick, wide open and ready for business.

"In anything that we do there has to be a smile, and that’s the smile in this Clubhouse," said John Riordan, Vice President of Customer Services for Virgin Airways. The urinals, called Kisses, were designed by Netherlands based company Bathroom Mania - they also make the Good Morning Sunshine flower potty, a toilet in the shape of a flower pot with images of flowery freshness, and the Splish Splash bathtub shaped like a hammock.

Let me get this straight - so men fantasize about urinating into women's mouths? How endearing...

Virgin's "Open Female Mouth" Urinals Are Dropped

Virgin Atlantic is dropping plans for urinals shaped like a woman's open mouth at toilets in its new clubhouse at New York's JFK Airport. A spokesman for the company said they'd received complaints about the urinals that were designed by Dutch company, Bathroom Mania. John Riordan, vice president of customer services said: "Everyone at Virgin Atlantic was very sorry to hear of people's concerns about the design of the "Kisses" urinals to be fitted into our clubhouse at JFK airport. We can assure everyone who complained to us that no offense was ever intended." Mr Riordan said the idea came from one of the female designers working on the new Terminal 4 clubhouse for first-class passengers.

Source: ananova.com 25 March 2004

A Better Version, Anyway

Then Be Sure to Wash Your Hands!

Source: designboom.com

Gold Toilet (At Least It's Easy to Keep Clean!)

Pictures courtesy 3-D Gold Store: World's Best Bathroom: Lam Sai Wing's Golden Bathroom and Gold Toilet
Enter the Golden Bathroom at the 3-D Gold Store in Hong Kong, China. No expense was spared to create this monument to decadence.
Yes, the toilet is made of gold. It was inspired by communist leader Vladimir Lenin to give golden toilets to the masses.

Source: travel.discovery.com/08 and travel.discovery.com/09

Source: toxel.com
Tugboat advertising agency redesigned a number of toilets at popular ski resorts in Japan;
cubicles are fully wrapped on all sides; the person has a ski jumper’s view when sitting on the loo;
he/she can look down at skis and see a steep ski jump slope ahead.

Would You Use These Toilets?

Source: thesun.co.uk sent to them by Derek Andrews

Source: designboom.com

See also:

	Toilet Paper Algorithms (an external site) - "...we had bought the dual-roll holder specifically so that we wouldn't have to think. But were our selections truly random, we would chose each roll roughly equally, so they would both empty at the same time - or close. Algorithm 'random' is not the one to use. To use toilet paper requires thought..."
	Urinal Net (another external site) - "The best way to piss away your time on the internet"...
	Wizmark Interactive Urinal Communicator (an external site) - Wizmark is based on one unwritten rule; when using a urinal, never stare at the person next to you. Every male knows that he can look anyway he wants except left or right. Realising this unwritten code, the appeal of the concept is that it assures your ad will effectively reach the elusive male audience. Wizmark is undoubtedly the perfect advertising medium for men of all ages. One-of-a-kind, fully functional interactive devices can talk, sing, or even flash promotional messages. The large anti-glare, water-proof viewing screens are strategically located just above the drain to ensure guaranteed viewing without interruptions. Using surprise and humour in a truly unique location, Wizmark and your ad will make a lasting impression...

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