GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY: BATHROOMS
We collaborated with Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf that has been addressing the needs of non-conforming people since it was authorized by Congress to grant college degrees and signed into law by Abraham Lincoln in 1864. We worked closely with a faculty committee led by two enlightened clients, Hansel Bauman and Elizabeth Brading to create inclusive restrooms and changing rooms at their sports facility, the Field House.
On the upper level of the Field House, we worked within constraints imposed by the modest footprint of existing men’s and women’s rooms to retrofit typical back-to-back sex segregated bathrooms into a multi-user facility. We considered this collaboration to be a case study that will yield design principles that can be applied to similar institutional retrofit projects.
Animation by MIXdesign and Clara Dykstra
Drawings by mixdesign and brenna thompson
ANIMATION
This animation illustrates our step-by-step design process. We remove the existing plumbing stack wall and treat the bathroom as one open space. Then we eliminate the corridor wall and bathroom doors. Now the bathroom becomes a porous extension of the corridor. Next, we add two blocks of fully enclosed stalls of three sizes: standard, ambulatory and ADA-compliant, as well as caregiving rooms equipped with toilet, sink and changing tables that allow for caregiving between people of different genders. Then, we add communal grooming and washing areas off the main circulation path. Finally, our scheme adds a lounge area that activates the corridor into an animated social space. The lounge connects with a refurbished corridor activated by a series of alcoves for sipping beverages, working at laptops or face-to-face conversations that facilitate deaf signing.
BEFORE AND AFTER PLANS
On the upper level of the Field House, we are are working within constraints imposed by the modest footprint of existing men's and women's rooms, to retrofit typical sex segregated bathrooms into a multi-user facility.
STALL AS PRIVACY UNIT
Our project works within the existing footprint dictated by the typical configuration of back-to-back sex segregated restrooms. The key to our design approach is treating the toilet stall as a privacy unit. It allows us to eliminate two crucial boundaries—the wall between the men's and women's rooms as well as the corridor wall—and allows us to treat the restroom as a semi-open precinct.
ACTIVATING THE CORRIDOR
By eliminating the corridor wall, this design for the Upper Level creates a more porous spatial relationship between the bathroom and corridor, now activated by the lounge.