Thursday, April 26, 2007

When convergence goes bad

The restaurant at which we had dinner last night in Brussels had an interesting 'washroom convergence model'. The Gals & Guys rooms' shared a single wash basin - this located in a hole in the wall between the two.

Art by Alex.

Was this a result of customer complaints about duplication & redundancy in sink infrastructure?

And the clear privacy compromise was deemed an acceptable trade-off?

2 comments:

Toby Baier said...

A similar installation is in a bar in Basel, Switzerland. But there is a mirror between the faces, so you can only see each others hands, or hand over the soap ;)

Anonymous said...

Did Alex also get a shot of the gender icons on the doors to said convenience?

As I recall, 'ours' was marked by a single homunculus with a sad face, while 'theirs' was marked by two feminiculae with happy faces.

Concerning the privacy breach (or breeches); time was when some British 'public conveniences' used to have a small plaque which read "Gentlemen adjust clothing before leaving".

Only a cad or a bounder, of course, emerges from the crapper still trying to confine his anatomy behind the trouser-fly. Especially if the washbasin is mounted in an open doorway to the Ladies'.