SAFE SCHOOL DESIGN, LLC

I’m impressed by thoughtful design, especially when it’s broad in scope, going beyond functional to being exceptional. With this in mind, I’m feeling inspired enough to give a tip of the hat to one such project – a humble toilet.

Or not so humble. Toto is a big name in toilets, especially in Japan. Their latest, the Toto Neorest 750H is an extraordinary example of how far thoughtful design can go. For the average human, a toilet is a toilet, and if it’s clean and functional that’s plenty good enough. What more is needed? Where can you go from clean and functional? The folks at Toto offer some answers with this award winning design. (Imagine winning an award for your toilet! Perhaps you haven’t heard of the internationally prestigious iF awards, because you lead a sheltered life, but there you have it. I picture something like this:)

Anyway, If you’ve been following this blog, you know I’m big on “safe, healthy and positive,” all wrapped together in facility design choices. The same can be applied at all levels of design. This toilet’s a great example. Check out some of the features they’ve dreamed up:

“…a pre-mist wets the bowl’s surface preventing waste’s adherence 80% better than a dry bowl. After each flush, eWater+ mists the bowl with electrolyzed water, which has a slightly acidic pH value, keeping the bowl fresh and clean longer.”

The bowl “is glazed with TOTO’s HYDROTECT titanium dioxide coating and zirconium, giving it a lovely iridescent, mother-of-pearl sensibility.” A glazing which, as it turns out, is really hard for waste to stick to.
And that’s not all. It’s got a UV light built into the seat lid, which goes on when the lid is closed, which I would like just as a nightlight, but the folks at Toto are way more sophisticated than I am, and it turns out that this “triggers a photo-catalytic process in which organic substances are broken down….accelerating the decomposition of all organic substances in the bowl.”

They’ve also integrated an advanced flushing capability….”which consumes a mere one-gallon of water per flush (gpf) for the full flush and .8 gpf for the light.” Its “Cyclone flushing technology” shoots two jets of water inside the bowl, which are both efficient and quiet.

This toilet’s slightly taller than many others, 17” from the base to the seat-top, for ergonomic reasons, but they also make kid-sized toilets.

Depending on which model appeals to you, other features can include an integrated personal cleansing system auto-open/close, auto-flush features, noise-masking and undoubtedly much more. How many toilets have enough features to justify cheeky youtube videos?

Which all leads me to believe they’ve given this a lot of thought. If we put a similar laser-like focus on every aspect of school and institutional design, imagine where it might get us?

You can check them out further in this videoclip, or visit their website, www.totousa.com