Re-thinking the pint of plain
ByA few weeks back, the results of the Royal Institute of British Architects call to “re-think the public toilet” were published. The project aimed to “position the public loo once again as a centerpiece for urban regeneration and to ultimately improve people’s lives”.
One of the entries was this one :
The architect’s submission said of it :
“Our proposal is for a toilet housed in a piece of public art, in this case a giant sculptural Hercules’ head in the classical style lying on the ground. It can be entered through a door, which we have based on the door of no.10 Downing Street. Listeners/viewers may infer what they like from the symbolism of the door, but the sculpture itself is conceived as a humorous antidote to the miserable and terrifying concrete Tardis that are the unfortunate mainstay of our miserly public toilet provision.”
It got me to thinking about the provision of public facilities in Dublin city. I honestly can’t think of any public facilities in the city centre apart from shopping centres. Outside of those, there are signs on many establishments saying “Toilets are for customers only”, which isn’t exactly fitting with the Ceád Míle Fáilte we are so famous for. Thankfully, pubs are generally more accommodating which is good news for those with weak bladders.
Would be interesting to see what ideas Irish architects came up with, or even photoshoppers such as myself. I’d go with the very predictable Guinness idea. I even have the tee shirt designs made up too, should the idea ever take hold. “I pissed in a pint of Guinness” anyone?
Original image of O’Connell Street owned by infomatique [cc license]
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1 Comments
September 4th, 2009 at 10:45 am
AJ, you do know, don’t you, that there are two flaws in your reasoning: Firstly, you don’t even drink Guiness (though I dare say any glass will do – what on earth happened to old fashioned trees? And why does the male of the species need a tree in the first place? Sorry, I digress.)
Secondly, try and be female on that score. Leaving privacy out of the picture aiming is a hit and miss affair.
On a more practical note: In the early stages of pregnancy when, for reasons only God knows – after all he created all our design faults, you always need to be in vicinity of sanitary facilities. I could have drawn you the perfect WC map of our town but then I was never shy to ask: You should see the state of many a “staff” toilet I was allowed to use.
Tip of the day, and not many people know this: Walk confidently into the lobby of any reasonably large and expensive hotel and toiletary bliss (including proper towels) will be yours.
U