Current Best Practices

Restroom design is too often left as an afterthought, when project teams reason the spaces don't claim much time or attention from occupants. Yet, efficient, hygienic, and enjoyable restrooms can boost occupant and visitor experience, while improving occupant and public health. It can also dramatically impact operating costs for common areas and energy and water loads. According to a 2011 Harris Interactive survey, 94 percent of U.S. adults said they “would avoid a business in the future if they encountered dirty restrooms.”² Key concerns for restroom design include:

• Layout. Appropriate planning should address privacy and likely user habits to improve aesthetics and reduce the number of surfaces users touch. The use of doorless public restrooms with “maze entries” ensure privacy and eliminate the hygiene issues associated with door handles.

• Fixture count. Building and plumbing codes require a certain number of toilet, urinal, and sink fixtures based on expected occupancy and usage. Historical use data and context on health provide guidance on whether minimum code requirements are appropriate. Public assembly venues, for example, have strict “potty parity” rules in many states, meaning a typical 2-to-1 ratio of women's toilets to men's fixtures, to prevent long lines at event times.

• Maintenance. Certain fixtures, components, and hardware may be relatively self-cleaning or -maintaining, like electric hand dryers. Architects and their clients should consider the likely maintenance staffing and schedule during occupancy, and specify to suit.

• Ventilation. Inappropriate venting can lead to odor-related dissatisfaction with the facility, as well as moisture-related problems with mold and mildew. There's also a rule of diminishing returns—overventing with high-speed fans that run for too long increases operating energy loads without a commensurate payoff in air-change performance.

• Vandalism. Often considered a maintenance issue, vandalism can be reduced by concealing valves and using tamperproof materials and hardware. A bathroom free of apparent vandalism is likely to leave a more positive impression of the host facility.

Many commercial restroom designs meet minimum code requirements but the layout of use points is impractical, for example, where hand-drying equipment is away from the sink. Image courtesy of Dyson Inc.

With these general rules, architects then look to the specifics of the building types and occupancy needs. Restroom design is complicated issue with no single best solution; the flush fixture used successfully for multiple-stall restrooms of sports arenas, for example, may not deliver the same performance benefits in the locked-door, single-occupancy restrooms of a medical office building. In all cases, the role of the facility manager in restroom operations may be a benefit for understanding usage and occupant preferences. Yet a facilities director at a small college may have preferences or standard specs for restroom accessories that have worked well in certain building types, that do not work well for new or renovated buildings with a change of use. In these cases, architects may opt for the standard the client prefers; but often it's wise to stress consideration of the most appropriate solutions, even if they are not the college standard.

That said, the most important factors for restroom facility design are universal: efficiency and economic impact, sustainability, safety, hygiene, accessibility, and comfort. Minimum acceptable levels for these variables are codified—except for comfort—and the codes vary by jurisdiction. The factors significantly impact the occupant population as well as the buildings, their owners, and the indirectly affected populations, such as other people in the community.

Consider for a moment a conventional public restroom that meets minimum code requirements, in which the hand-drying equipment is placed just a few feet away from the sink. This may meet code, but it will lead to users dripping water on the floor between the two stations, creating a possible slip hazard. The distance between the two use points may be especially frustrating for a wheelchair occupant, who must operate her chair with just-washed hands in order to reach the towel dispenser or electric dryer.

This defeats the purpose of washing in the first place: leaving the facility with sanitized hands. Savvy architects look to avoid this kind of design error, for example by drastically reducing the distance between the sink and the drying accessory, or by designing to avoiding situations where hand dryers blow water from wet hands down and onto a wheelchair user's lap, as is the case with like conventional warm-air hand dryers. As an alternative, state-of-the-art restroom products often address these issues, such as novel “hands-in” electric hand dryers or new touchless water faucets with integral electric hand dryers that have recently come onto the market.

A recently introduced alternative restroom product combines automatic, touchless water faucets with integral electric hand dryers—a combination fixture/accessory system that limits dripping on the floor, encourages drying, and boosts user convenience and ergonomics. Image courtesy of Dyson Inc.

Solutions like this combined fixture/accessory system help incorporate best-practice design thinking with new opportunities for end-user ease and convenience. Though currently such solutions are rare, they will advance as they bring long-term payoff on the triple bottom line of economic, environmental, and social benefit. They provide a simplified solution with reduced operations costs, improved green performance, and even improved accessibility or use for the wheelchair-bound, while providing all of the required hygienic properties.