Bike + Toilet = Blog Post

So, at the nexus of two of my favorite things, here is a post collating some of the many posts on the interwebs about bikes and toilets. My definition of bikes seems to float a bit, and though I have to say I prefer bicycles to motorbikes, I suppose I'll accept either if it's intersecting with the toilet.

First up, how about a delightfully designy interior concept for toilet decor that makes you feel like you could hop on and ride off.


Next, check out something that only Japanese technology could inspire: Toto Bike.




Yup. A motorbike engineered by Toto, the fancy Japanese toilet maker, that runs on human waste. Is it for real? It's not clear. But it does have a lot of cool functions, that's got to count for something. You can even follow it on twitter! Though you have to be able to read Japanese, or be dedicated enough to google translate that shit. No pun intended. Well done Toto, you've outdone yourselves.

Here's a nice and dryly informative video from Reuters


And here's a really wonderfully amusing Japanese add for the potty bike. Wow. The guy riding it has a helmet with a sort of white turd on the top. Amazing.


Also, ever had your bicycle seat stolen right off your bike while it's locked up outside a coffee shop? If that's happened to you, then perhaps you should consider this? A new look, and one that thieves will have a harder time making off with.


I will leave you with one other thought, which is that there are a remarkable number of toilet and bicycle related videos on youtube.


And there are also a remarkable number of non-bicycle toilet videos.

Loowatt: Waterless toilet system

Ok so I know it hot right not and all that, but really, taking on and solving sanitation issues in the global south is a really important means of 'development' and a really great way to apply our wealthy stockpiles of innovation.

As one such idea, check out Loowatt, "a revolutionary waterless toilet system that creates local economies around waste treatment.

The toilet uses a unique sealing mechanism to package feces and urine into an odourless cartridge, within a biodegradable lining material. The cartridge is emptied once or twice weekly into an anaerobic digester. The digester converts human waste into natural gas and fertilizer, commodities which pay back the community."

Check out their blog here
And their rocking power point explaining their implementation of the pilot system for this spring in Antananarivo in Madagascar.







Thanks to John K. for sharing Loowatt with me.

Sex--Oh sorry, 'eternal luxury'--in the Bathroom!

This is both ridiculous and wonderful. What a fortunate intersection of two of my interests: bathrooms and sex(-iness).

Originally from The Design Blog, in a post written by Asmita Prasad: "Luxury Bathtub from Caijou Le Grand Queen - World’s first Luxury Bathtub from Caijou"

Check this out. Not only do you get a prehistoric specimen in which to wash your junk, you also become (or acquire?) some hot chiseled bods.

"Crafted in the shape of the Indonesian “bangka” canoes, the Le Grand Queen Bathtub is designed to give users a unique perspective on the history of our planet and the wonders that the interaction of various material, life forms and elements have had on the creation of these mini wonders that we have inherited today.

The petrified wood used in making this luxury bath tub is said to be over 180-million years old- a truly stunning number. What’s even more staggering is that the super-rare material took a 200-strong team over 600,000 hours to dig in the most perilous terrain in Indonesia."

Behold!



No, but derision aside, I'm all for unusually designed bathtubs. I'll be the first to admit that I think it's preposterous that we spend tons of time, energy, money thinking about ways to beautify furniture. And thanks to places like Ikea, sometimes well-designed furniture can also be acquired at affordable prices. But, truly unusual bathrooms are pretty much out of reach for everyone except the mega-millionaires. Who look like these guys in the picture, by the way.

So, you might be thinking, 'fixtures in the bathroom need to be devoid of fashion because they are installed and immovable, so therefore have to weather many years of changes in taste.' Yes. But that hasn't stopped us in the kitchen. For some reason I think the idea of beautifying the crapping and washing zone is a little too taboo for us. And I'm sure some designer somewhere would love to create an easily personalized and changed set of parts for building one's bathroom. Is anyone else seeing a modular kit?

One more possibly incoherent note about this post: it's a perfect example of something that I hate and love about design blogs. "Over 180 million years old"!? I don't even know what that means. How can we be talking about a bathtub. This is just too alien. So many design posts showcase these contrived and often sort of alienating images of beautiful things. These things do not have real meaning or value other than being beautiful and transportive. It's like a PR wet dream. And in any case they are targeted at the rich. Why should only the rich have access to beauty? This is something that I often think about. More on that another time.

Words on Walls: Pen or Paintbrush?

The thought recently occurred to me that I should take stock of some of the themes in this blog. That's a project that I'm not going to take on right now, but I have a feeling that when I get around to it, graffiti is going to be an important element.

In theory I like the idea of increasing a user's investment in the space by allowing them to personalize it. And to transcend the boundaries of this private space by leaving messages for others. And I also find the doodle art aesthetic appealing. It seems to me that often when users are allowed to (or defacto allowed in that they are not prevented from) deface the walls, they usually end up writing vaguely asinine and sentimental statements. One such example, brought to you from Williamsburg, New York:




Or another vaguely mystical attempt at wit, perhaps?






Well the meta-analytic sentiment is sort of deep, if you're given to intellectualizing things. As I am. And then with the sheep pun... that's just great. Then again, if the scribbles enhance the general aesthetic of the space, then it shouldn't really matter what they says since they sort of just operate as ornamentation.










I was recently in a bathroom in Burlington, Vermont and the painted walls had this delightful hand-drawn style. I feell like this is placed nicely in dialogue with graffiti because it could be said to have a similar naive--day I say, doodled?--aesthetic, without insinuating that it's unsanctioned in any way.





Perhaps there could be a middle ground? A toilet where there's paint buckets and aprons lining the walls and you get a chance to doodle a bit? Without having a fine tipped sharpie at your disposal, perhaps the outcome will not be inane commentary about love and drug use. Maybe it'll be more insightful, surprising, entertaining? This seems like a job for the Doodlers Anonymous.



Ok guys, want to team up? I'll meet you in the bathroom.

Warm Lighting

Homestead in San Francisco apparently wants you to feel like an iguana in a heated enclosure while peeing. Or maybe the red bulb was an oversight? The effect is positively tender, until you spot the eerie movie posters in the frame by the sink. CAT PEOPLE!

I love it.

Women Skeletons and Men Skeletons May Pee Here and Here, Respectively

I do love the decor all over the Red Bones and Under Bones in Davis Square, Somerville. However, I would question whether skeletons continue to have gender "men" and "women" even after the fleshy and culturally significant part of the body has decomposed...

But then upon closer inspection I realize I have overlooked the clothing (and hair?), which clearly proves that skeletons do indeed continue to stand as specimens of their gender category.

The Virtues of Trendy Wallpaper

Courtesy of Starlight Lounge in Somerville, MA, I had a few interesting thoughts regarding the merits of wallpaper in the loo.

This toilet tickled my fancy, and seemed to echo a trend I've been seeing in toilets recently. Namely, why not cover the walls with something whimsical and distracting, perhaps even over-stimulating? That way, you achieve an attractive though possibly divisive decorative statement. This design, apparently pulled from old 50s/60s magazine advertisements, are particularly a l'epoque given the recent darling obsession with this era (a la Mad Men, and so on). As a decorative choice, furthermore, it distracts from the standard furnishings necessary to make this space a toilet. Looking around this bathroom, it's almost difficult to pick out the toilet, standard support bar, sink and paper towel dispenser. It's almost to say that these furnishings are too unspeakable to be accented, so let's draw the eye away from them by means of amusing and in this case, saucy wall paper. Hooray, what a delightful exaggerated statement of our implicit feelings towards the bathroom.

As a thought experiment, what if these decorators had papered EVERYTHING in the bathroom? Now wouldn't that have been interesting.

Also. There is an interesting flavor of social commentary that occurs when we introduce sexually provocative imagery in the very space sanctioned for crapping. It's a sort of sordid confusion of acts all associated with the body that brings to mind a very puritanical sense of shame that we ascribe both to crapping and shagging. Lovely.

I greatly enjoyed this toilet, not least because I sort of felt like I was watching TV, or engaging in some other escapist media while performing a routine behavior. It was sort of strangely luxurious. Oooh la la.