TRIANGLE by Nao Tamura

New York-based designer Nao Tamura has designed a public restroom in Shibuya, as a part of 'The Tokyo Toilet' project organized by The Nippon Foundation. The project is a program to build 17 public toilets in Shibuya City, Tokyo, by collaboration with various creators. This project is the first architectural design for the designer Tamura, who has worked mainly in product design and installation in her career.

Tamura said, "When I first thought about what a public restroom should be for everyone, regardless of age, gender identity, nationality, religion, or skin colour, I think the fact that I'm a woman influenced a lot on this design. I don't believe that I am the only one who felt fear and discomfort in public restrooms especially at night and alone. For everyone to be able to use a public restroom comfortably, I believed that the most essential requirement was not a moody or comfortable space, but privacy and safety. It's quite obvious, but with those things in mind, I started planning the layout, colour scheme and details."

She also redefined personal space and arranged the three rooms evenly. To ensure privacy, private rooms are located in the women's and men's toilets right at the entrance.

When we asked her about the unique shape, she told us, "The design was inspired by Origata, a traditional Japanese method of gift wrapping. The ancient technique is not only an expression of beauty and etiquette, but one of the highest forms of honour and respect when bestowed upon its receiver. For the small triangular site, I came up with the idea of creating a geometric space that looks like a folded piece of paper. This motif also embodies the spirit of welcoming visitors from abroad to Shibuya because this project was originally planned in tandem with the Tokyo Olympics. For the exterior design, we tried to minimise the thickness of the walls and ceilings and worked hard to create a folded paper like shape."

In terms of colour, bright red was chosen as an attention-grabbing colour to increase the safety of the restroom. "I chose a bright red, a bit close to orange, so that the toilets would be visible to the user in an industrial-looking location near the railroad tracks. In fact, it was hard to achieve this kind of colour with heat reflective paint, and if we couldn't achieve the ideal colour, we considered changing to a different one. However, after repeated adjustments, the perfect red was achieved," she told us.

Due to the designer's brilliant insights and unique design, this vividly coloured architecture was created in the global city - Shibuya - with her hope of a safer and happier society for all.