Vasinth's Proposal: Gender Junctions

    On the contrary of a typical public bathroom convention, 'Gender Junctions' challenges and exhibits a different perspective of the bathroom experience.  Unlike a two-by-two meter bathroom installed in a house, the unisex bathroom design is maximized into the shophouse typology context, whilst bathroom components: sinks, bathroom stalls, urinals, baby changing facilities, men's locker room, women's makeup/dressing room; are arranged in different floors according to the user's gender.

  

A transparent water reservoir serves as a supplier for the bathroom, somewhat as well as an 'imaginary boundary' that segregates the gender's bathroom components.  In a shape of a trapezoid, the reservoir consumes up the spaces; as the users escalates up the bathroom shophouse, the more privatized/personal the spaces become (in a sense feminine or masculine).

Inside the reservoir are channels/stair circulation of the shophouse.  The intertwined connection of this transparent tunnel allows an ephemeral moment when the two genders meet.  As the main objective was concerning privacy and publicity in space conventions, the bathroom contains a constant shift in private and public space through its transition circulation.  The idea was inspired by the constant alteration of space dispersions in Leng Buay Eia at certain times of the day.

  

 Its infrastructure is composed of leg channels that transfer flow of water into different parts of the shophouse, connecting to a supply line and drain line that is installed as part of the reservoir component as well.

The whole 'bathroom' shophouse can be perceived as somewhat both a public bathroom located in a park, and a private bathroom in a hotel, since there is a combination of both convention elements installed in the same place.  Parts of the exterior are transparent glass walls, louvers/jalousie', or otherwise open, to challenge the context of an asian bathroom as boundless and exposed.

The renderings of the shophouse are transparent, according to its materiality, demonstrating the moments of these experiences, taboos, and how culturally both gender bathroom conventions are supposed to be separated/avoid physical contact from each other, but have a glimpse of this blur visual accessibility about the activities happening.  In which a person has the opportunity to experience a private space that in a sense is also public, or a bare perception one might see, but is unable to reach.