GBE Future Facing Environmental Bathrooms BrainStorm

About:

Future-facing Sustainable Bathrooms, Bathing and Sanitaryware

Design

Chicane pathway with no inter-visibility entering and leaving public toilets
No doors and no ironmongery for bacteria transfer
Interior designers seem to be pushing for unisex communal toilets in offices
- Space saving seems to be the driver
- Socialising will probably consume more time
  - But happier staff?
Sequential layouts with some logic to the movement of people
- Time saving navigation and sequence of activities
Wet-soap-dry machines in larger numbers or phased out in high demand toilets
- Need to keep customers flowing
- Will hand wash and drying taps over basins clog up the flow of people
Architect designed vanity unit/basin tops banned!
- Avoid splash water flooding vanity top then dripping onto floors
- Architect designed vanity unit tops and taps tested together on full-flow, low-flow and drip-drip.
Outward opening door to small cubicles (French approach) to reduce space needed
- Robust internally hooking ironmongery to give users confidence
Consider Ska rating (Environmental Assessment Method) for fit-out and refit.
- More robust and comprehensive than BREEAM

Sanitaryware

All water saving profiles/outlets
Proximity actuated, water saving, flow regulated, aerated taps (except bath taps)
No more tooth brushing with tap open long term

Proximity actuation (presence or departure)

Proximity actuated low water flow sprinkler taps
No-more percussion push-taps ever especially in pressurized multi-storey projects
No more water hammer (for quiet Schools Universities Hospitals)
Proximity actuated foaming soap dispensers

Baths

Showers

Atomized mist showers
75% water saving
Easy DIY fitting
Standard threads for connecting
3 stage mineral-based water cleaning
Mineral adding
Aromatherapy addition
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cirrus-shower-revolutionary-uses-75-percent-less-water-design#/

Another mist shower

Water saving showers (even if rain showers)

Smart showers for water management
Voice actuated and voice recognition
Knows your temperature preference, head settings, stops and starts water for you
Audible
“Wet, soap-up, rinse”
Count down
Controls with attitude
lets you know when you’re consuming too much water
or lingering too long

Urinals

Rainwater harvesting

Grey water harvesting

From basins to flush toilets
- Australian basin on WC cistern
- Roca/Laufen model basin beside WC
- See 2009 Future bathrooms (right column)
From baths to flush toilets
In wall pre plumbed systems
No energy intensive UV or chemical cleaning of water
If you must, use Solar PV to run it

Fabric first refurbishments

Whenever a bathroom is refurbished or refitted, use it as a trigger point for a proper job
Decent Homes, privately, Insurance repairs, etc.
All removed parts diverted from landfill for reuse or recycling
Insulate the external walls, and all voids that are opened up, properly for before refitting
So it does not have to be undone and then redone later (GreenDeal, ECO)
Refit with access panels to minimize leak damage and avoid refits next time
Insulate all hot and cold pipes everywhere not just the 1^st meter from the cyclinder

Acoustics:

No more noisy hand driers
‘Quiet mark’ promoted more widely
Awarded to exceptionally quiet fast-air blower hand-driers
Not just to the first company that asked to be assessed
And not likely to be awarded to Dyson Airblade (whether they applied or not)
Men not allowed to pee standing up in blocks of flats and hotels after 9pm
Acoustic privacy in cubicles especially in unisex communal toilets
Airtightness measures at all pipes through walls/floors/roofs/partitions/ceilings/in casings/ducts

Vitreous china

Ironmongery:

Anti-bacterial coatings:

Sealants:

Purpose-made profile single-piece rubber gasket water-tight seal to walls and floors:
avoiding silicone sealant:
easy reclaimable, cleanable, resalable and reusable china

Energy consumption

Effective design hand driers down to 500 Watts and still effective in 10 seconds
Fast air blower hand drying in preference to heat
Enhanced Capital Allowance promoted widely
Energy Technology List listed appliance adopted more widely
Shower waste heat recovery transferred to shower hot water supply, fitted everywhere
Insulated hot and cold pipes (everywhere including domestic)

Plumbing:

Electrical wiring

Water consumption

Leak-Flood prevention

Easter and western WC habits will probably never merge for the majority

Westerners with medical guidance may adopt squatting
Western poo inspection platforms will never catch on in UK except in medical buildings perhaps
Easterners catered for:
- Robust Toilet seats that will not break if not lifted and squatted upon (Seen in schools)
- Squatting profiled feet places on western sitting WC bowl?
Truly rimless toilets (not smaller rims) with a ledge
- First seen by me in Belfast during their ‘troubles’
- Assumed to be designed ‘nowhere to hide explosives’
Rimless toilets in Prison WCs
- No where to hide ‘miniature mobiles, drugs, sharps’