Bathrooms & Washrooms 27 toilets. Particularly if they need a Changing Places, they will either stay for only a short time, or not go at all. That loses revenue for the venue, be it a café through to an amusement park.
Stella Maris had her bathroom refreshed to accommodate her disability, but still kept her style Wash & dry toilets are a perfect example. The WCs do what their name implies- integrated douching and drying mean there is no need to wipe with toilet paper. The fixture delivers a hands-free, hygienic clean. In Japan for example such toilets are the norm. As we travel more frequently and widely, more of us are encountering such technology, and appreciating it, to the extent that in the UK wash & dry (also called smart) toilets are becoming an aspirational fixture. Yet they have been available here for more than half a century- traditionally only as an enabling solution for the disabled sector. The benefits are such that the British Standard for accessible design- BS8300:2018- notes that the inclusion of a wash & dry toilet in place of a traditional close-coupled WC in a Changing Places facility gives users greater dignity and independence.
The toilet may be something simple, but it matters, and impacts more widely on daily life and peoples choices than we realise.
Whatever toilet facilities are provided, in whatever setting, they need to be properly designed and installed. Many factors are common sense, obvious if one thinks about it; however, unless you are disabled yourself, most of us who design, install bathrooms, washrooms etc do not even think about how we would get on and off the toilet, what support we need to deal with our intimate care. A ‘top tips’ has been produced to cover the key points for Changing Places installations: CLICK HERE. Many of those elements also apply to domestic bathrooms, but there is a bespoke version to help get it right: CLICK HERE.
On average, we move our bladders and bowels eight times a day. It therefore massively influences people’s decisions if they need additional support. Indeed, in domestic settings, the bathroom is the most frequently adapted room under Disabled Facilities Grants, and the WC the most frequently altered fixture therein.
A little thought over the design and flexibility of a bathroom or washroom means what is provided meets the need, now and at least in the medium term future. It delivers domestic bathrooms that will be more suitable to a wider section of the population. It delivers away from home facilities that more people can use, so more people will come, spend money. It pays to be accessible- at least in the loo.
Away from home, research shows people make a conscious decision about where to go based on their perception of availability of suitable
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It all serves to enhance a wash & dry WC’s suitability as a universal design solution: people with limitations can use them to ‘go’ with little or no help, and their technology means they appeal to the able who want optimum hygiene, the Generation Ys, Millenials. The tech further enables satisfaction of certain Islamic cultural demands. Thereby something as simple as a toilet can deliver accessibility in the widest sense, in all bathroom environments- at home, in multi-occupancy buildings from care homes to hotels, through to away from home locations as diverse as the supermarket and the top tourist attraction.
Tamworth Castle has just refurbished its toilets to be inclusive, by remodelling one unit to include a Changing Places developer-update.co.uk