Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Designing for Women [was An article that might be ofinterest to some of you

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Sep 20, 2013, at 11:23 AM, Wayne Tyson <landrest [at] cox.net> wrote:

> Shared toilet facilities are a major example of this. (Studies have shown, 
> by the way, that co-ed facilities work best, as each sex tends to keep the 
> facilities cleaner than those separated by sex, apparently because one sex 
> knows that the opposite sex might be the next person to use them.

I'm working on a historic theater proposal for renovation so this is good 
information as well as the looking nice info. The original had "retiring rooms" 
with leather chairs for men and white wicker for women.

> My own surveys found that the better-designed, nice facilities suffered far 
> less vandalism than "hardened" institutional-type designs. One movie-house 
> restroom that was paneled in high-quality cedar, had fresh flowers, and 
> vintage catalog pages over the toilet, suffered ZERO vandalism, despite the 
> very high level of usage and the broadest demographic. 

We need to replace the toilets in our CH bathrooms. It's an issue that we have 
the institutional kind with the split seat and the chrome pipes on the back 
with no water tank. We don't have vandalism but we do have messes and failure 
to flush.

Does anyone know if the institutional type toilets are required?




Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org