A Japanese architect named Kengo Kama decided to change the public's opinion – and commit an act. He has always been frustrated that humanity sees public sorters as unclean places that cause disgust and contempt. His new project, implemented with the support of the Tokyo Currents Project Foundation and the Nippon Foundation, aims to correct this injustice.
For a long time, he implemented a project to replace brick capital toilet "booths" with bamboo huts developed with the support of designers of leading agencies. In total, five of them were installed, connected by stepped paths, ideal for leisurely walks in the fresh air.
The structures are chaotically and haphazardly sheathed with cedar boards, as well as log cabins from entire pine trunks and tree saws with a cute concentric pattern of regular shape. Inside there are modern plumbing, water saving systems, air conditioning and similar bourgeois excesses. Effective solar panels are installed on the roof, and batteries inside, which allows you to use the energy accumulated on bright sunny days at night and at a time when the sky is covered with clouds.
This is not the first project of this kind implemented in Japan. Earlier, the local architectural and design bureau "Sappouse Design Office" built at one of the railway stations a cabin in the form of a box with a height of more than seven meters, which does not have visually distinguished points of contact with the surface - the observer has the impression of an object suspended in the air.
The same group in 2019 built a maze-format toilet in downtown Kyoto. It seems to locals that the money could be spent in the best way, but tourists this significant structure causes constant delight.
Paper toilets for industrial areas
The theme of sending the needs of the body is not alien to the inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun, as well as unusual projects.
A few years ago, a series of "paper" public restrooms was built in the Japanese capital. In section, they are a triangle and, according to the architect, should remind the usual Way for the Japanese to pack gifts for national holidays.
Each such toilet is divided into three cabins for reflection. Each has a mirror, a sink and the toilet itself, and the facades are made of sheets of bright scarlet metal, crumpleed and flattened to resemble the arigato technique - this is how it is customary in the country to pack small gifts presented to colleagues and friends as a symbol of gratitude.
Nyao Tamura, the architect of these "gifts", claims that he wanted to make them as bright as possible - because they are located in industrial quarters, in the shadow of bridges and the railway station. Accordingly, he planned to shade their grayness with bright colors.
In the Irkutsk village of Manzurka in the spring of 2021, toilets were also put in the local school. However, this was done very unusually - partitions between the toilets were not put, as well as no legroom was provided. Which, however, is still progress – before that, since the construction of the school in 1937, children and teachers had to use an unheated cesspool in the schoolyard.
