Baca Biar Ngerti... Ngerti Biar Tambah Wawasan... PART 01

Designing Public Rest Rooms:
Privacy is in the Details

Provided by Hadrian
By Virginia A. Greene, AIA
Planning criteria address aesthetics, safety, maintenance, and sustainability

The design of public rest rooms is essential to the success and function of all building
projects. Among the most important design criteria are public health, privacy, safety, and
welfare issues governing these spaces. Good planning, combined with lighting and
ventilation, creates safe, clean, and comfortable public environments.
Large, high-traffic venues, such as airports, sports arenas, and theatres, rely upon efficient
and functional public restroom design to accommodate significant numbers of people on
tight schedules. Plumbing fixture counts for men and women, whether determined by
codes, ratios, building owners, or design professionals, are critical factors that can result
in effective traffic and circulation flow, or long lines of patrons at peak hours. Regardless
of the project building type, location, size or scale, the success of public rest room design
is in the details. When appropriately planned and specified, toilet partitions provide
solutions for public health, safety, and accessibility.

Maintenance and Safety
Design criteria for public rest rooms must include practical maintenance solutions. All
public rest room facilities are subjected to health department inspections to maintain
health standards. Architects can specify internal central floor drains to collect water used
in cleaning and maintaining “wet” spaces in public buildings, such as multi-plex theaters,
where large numbers of people gather.
Most public facilities use toilet partitions in rooms with ceramic tile on floors and walls,
and less frequently, on ceilings, thereby creating a continuous impervious surface to
withstand frequent cleaning. Ceramic provides the best water resistance for all wall and
floor surfaces in bathroom design. Specifying ceramic tile in wet zones also allows
flexibility for introducing color, texture, and light to interior spaces. Tile borders, edge
treatments, and color bands further enhance aesthetics and design options. The overall
effect is a uniform surface for efficient cleaning and maintenance.
Public safety is the primary design consideration in public rest rooms. Partitions
protect the public from undue exposure, theft, and injury. Toilet partitions are usually
found in public rest rooms, but can also be used as shower compartments in public
facilities, such as gyms and health clubs. These partitions are subject to accessibility
design standards for handicapped or challenged patrons, and to vandalism, graffiti, and
surface-damage criteria.

Toilet Partition Panel Systems
Toilet partitions are made to be permanently affixed to a building. They are wall systems
used primarily as privacy enclosures, which can be mounted or anchored to the floors and
ceilings of public bathrooms. Standard toilet partitions subdivide public bathroom spaces
in accordance with code requirements for safe exiting and handicapped accessibility, and
are made of fire-resistant materials to meet fire code ratings. Most standard partitions
made of metal have a one-hour fire rating. Although they are not defining fire separation
walls, partitions create subdivisions, or individual compartments, within public rest rooms.
The structural requirements for some toilet partitions demand free-standing, selfsupporting
wall supports, called pilasters or stanchions.

Fixture Counts
Determining the total number of fixture compartments per rest room depends upon the
number of patrons and relevant code requirements. Plumbing fixture count for public toilet
rooms is determined by the total number of seats in an assembly building, such as a
building with auditorium seating. For design purposes, total seat count is distributed as 50
percent male occupants and 50 percent female occupants. Based on the numbers calculated for each
gender, the architect follows governing codes, which often use a ratio basis for factoring the
minimum number of toilet-room fixtures required.
Typically, twice as many water closets, or toilets, are provided for females than for males.
In addition, a urinal can be substituted for water closets for up to
one half the total required number of fixtures for males. Panels surrounding urinals are
typically either wall or floor mounted systems, and are available in washable materials,
such as metal, plastic, or composites. Specifications may also address the lateral stability
to withstand 40 pounds of pressure per square foot, and frequent use.

Privacy, Health, and Safety
Public rest rooms should be clean, safe environments. Designing private bathroom spaces with
partitioned toilets requires attention to privacy, security, health, and sanitary conditions. Public
and private areas may be clearly defined by the location of toilet partitioning systems.
Aligning the toilet and sink areas opposite one another using toilet partitions as space dividers
separates public and private zones. Successful public spaces prioritize user comfort,
ease of movement through the space, cleanliness, and the brevity of time required to use the facility.
Theater design is a case in point. “In the movie theater and exhibition industry, the ability
to move people is very similar to the approach applied at Disney properties. Movie show
times are staggered to control and mitigate ingress and egress of hundreds of moviegoers,
or patrons. Convenient location, disbursement of facilities throughout the theater complex,
and the number of rest room facilities for men and women follow the same theory,” said
James T. Martino, AIA, principal of James Thomas Martino Architect, P.C., in Port
Washington, New York.
The use of toilet partitions to sub-divide a bathroom facility can affect air circulation. If
not properly planned, poor air circulation in a bathroom space with toilet partitions can
cause moisture pockets and air circulation barriers. The building design must provide
appropriate mechanical systems, which require careful review and coordination of
architectural, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems to ensure proper ventilation.
The architect reviews toilet partition shop drawings from the manufacturer and coordinates
the design with mechanical systems for air and moisture control in wet zones. Architects
should review the location of fresh air and return air ducts in conditioned bathroom
facilities, as these systems may impact the location of toilet partitions, panel heights,
quantities of toilet partitions, frequency of use, and proximity to heating, ventilation, and
air conditioning (HVAC) systems. When these design factors are well orchestrated,
bathroom areas in public facilities provide comfort and optimal airflow.
Public rest rooms should be safe spaces. When planning high-traffic public areas, architects
must consider the possibility that individuals may try to damage, destroy, or vandalize the
finishes, furnishings, and equipment in a space. Toilet partition design must address
minimizing damage from vandalism, theft, and defacement.
These factors impact the design for secure closing mechanisms, variable partition heights,
finish surfaces, and panel spacing. Various surfaces may be specified to
provide durability, such as a washable, stain-resistant, painted-on finish for metal
panels that addresses ease of maintenance due to vandalism. Continuous hingeside
fillers enhance privacy by visually sealing the gap between the compartment door
and the vertical support, or stanchion. A full height continuous stop and keeper
eliminates the sight gap on the stop side of the door, and protects against vandalism because
doors cannot be “racked,” or bent, by pulling on the top corner of the door, as can occur with
a single-point stop and keeper.

Design of High Traffic Areas
Toilet partitions must be strong and durable, to withstand daily abuse caused by normal traffic,
including dents to scratches. When specifying toilet partitions, architects should consider
materials that are compatible with peak demands of high traffic and frequency of use.
The huge volume of people using public bathroom facilities at a sports stadium can be as
many as one quarter of the seating capacity during a timed break in the action. Building
owners expect architects to consider these volumes, along with cost-effective facility
maintenance. Public rest room facilities are subject to daily maintenance procedures to meet
health department standards. Employees are required to wash their hands after using the
facilities, and standards govern daily sanitization and bathroom cleaning. Toilet partitions,
which are ceiling mounted or hung from the structure above, allow open floor space, better
accessibility, and maintenance flexibility for mopping and cleaning each partitioned toilet
area. Ideally, toilets are wall mounted for the same reasons, to save time and money, and to
provide clean environments.

Hardware
During a concert performance intermission, especially at older theaters, it is not unusual to
see lines of women waiting to use the rest rooms. Appropriate rest room design results in
better fixtures, spatial relationships, and more individually partitioned toilet compartments.
In older public rest rooms, the owner often must hire a monitor to expedite the flow of
people. While not ideal, this step can ease the pressure of partition use and provide a
measure of safety.
Some toilet partitions contain special color-coded indicator latches that signal if the stall
is occupied, as used on commercial aircraft. These indicators consist of slide hardware
in the latch mechanism exposing a red bar when the stall is occupied, and a green bar
when unoccupied.
The simple style and lines of toilet partitions can be emphasized or streamlined through
hardware details. Zinc, steel, and aluminum are materials used in hardware for toilet
partitions. Heavy traffic can cause undue wear and tear on the toilet partition anchors. Panels
should be durable enough to function well and withstand daily use in all public facilities, such
as airports, which have high traffic volumes, and require frequent hardware checks and
adjustments. Even though these areas must accommodate space for packages, luggage, and
carry-on baggage, rest rooms are often designed with limited space to access these items.
Higher panels and appropriate hardware details contribute to safe toilet compartments, thereby
preventing theft or the ability of an individual to reach underneath or overhead.
This type of protection is often used within public rest rooms at train stations, airports,
and bus terminals, where passengers are laden with packages and may be easily distracted.
Most toilet partitions have internal latches and locking mechanisms, which are easy to use
and prevent getting locked into a stall.
Longer panels are mounted for more coverage and protection. Some building owners have
posted signage in rest rooms, indicating that the public is responsible for their own property.
This signage is often integrated into the design.