2006-10-11 - Vancouver Courier
By: Barry Link

Flush with Style

Restaurant washrooms in Vancouver have traditionally been an afterthought, if not a nightmare. Now they're the coolest part of the place.

Robert Bailey knows disappointment. You hit the town, go to a chic restaurant and enjoy a fine meal surrounded by a great crowd. Then, after an evening of good food, booze and engaging conversation, that certain moment of need strikes. Excusing yourself from the table, you enter the restaurant's washroom. And it's crap--small, cramped and with bright lights and cheap clashing fixtures completely at odds with the dining room from which you've come. It's enough to make an interior designer like Bailey weep.
Thanks to Bailey, no tears involving rickety metal urinal screens or overhead fluorescent lights are being shed at the Opus Hotel in Yaletown. Bailey was the designer for the hotel during its construction four years ago, and he was given a mandate to be fun and stylish. That included the downstairs washroom serving the Elixir restaurant and lounge. It's where I meet him last week.
"Everything should be interesting," says Bailey, who's casually yet suavely dressed and who in a purring voice throws out words like sexy and edgy as if they were popcorn. "Nothing should be dull."
Bailey looks perfectly at home in his space--it's as suave as he is. Indigo tiles line the walls. The translucent vanity counters glow from underlighting. Small television monitors above the urinals in the men's room, and to each side of the vanity mirror in the women's room, carry a live video feed of the scene in the lounge.
But the celebrated space's main feature, which everyone who's visited here talks about, is a clear glass wall draped with a sheer curtain separating the men's and women's washrooms. It effectively makes them into one room.
Turning a trip to the washroom into a game of peekaboo between the sexes was deliberate.
"The hotel wanted us to have fun with everything," he says, noting that the space is small, hemmed in by the concrete walls of the hotel's parking garage. "The message we kind of played with was 'see and be seen.'"
It only goes so far. Only the primping at the vanity can be observed through the glass wall; the stalls and urinals are out of view from both sides. But it's enough to accomplish the aim of Bailey and the owners of the Opus: create a potty space people talk about.
Opus was one of the first to go this route, but the hospitality industry is following suit. Washrooms are changing. After decades of plugged-up and strained bathroom design, Vancouver has done its paperwork, reached out to grip the handle of style, and flushed the logjam of old school attitudes away. It's not just about being pretty. Wise restaurant owners have discovered they can improve the bottom line by paying attention to the bottom end.
It was not always so. From overburdened public restrooms at mall food courts to rickety closet-sized poopers in ethnic eateries, restaurant patrons have put up with one of the most central human functions exiled to gassy gulags.
To be fair, there have always been good washrooms in this city. Discerning Vancouverites in need downtown have long known that in an urban centre cruelly lacking in public restrooms, relief can be found in the better hotels. Slip into the lobby of the Hotel Vancouver or the Four Seasons, pad down the carpeted halls, and you'll find well-appointed old school washrooms of wood and stone with private stalls, generous mirrors and white cotton hand towels.
Today's builders are paying more attention to design and style--fun, comfort and luxury are the watchwords. That's the thesis of Seng Sengsavanh, the compact and amiable academic director of the interior design program at the Art Institute of Vancouver. We meet in an office on the school's downtown seventh floor campus, which overlooks the construction site of the impending Shangri-La residential tower.
Sengsavanh remembers the old days, when most washrooms were banged together with only function and safety in mind.
"Even five, 10 years ago, if budgets had to be cut, that's one area where people would pull money from," he says.
Now the hospitality trade and the designers they hire want to make a statement with their washrooms.
They want cool and edgy and are using quality finishing materials, such as natural stone, wood and accented lighting flattering to skin tones. They're also paying attention to the ergonomics of people during their most personal moments.
There's a solid business reason behind the trend: owners want to create a buzz about their location. Sengsavanh has noticed the reaction of diners to stylish washrooms in local restaurants. "At the end of the night, people don't ask, 'How did you enjoy your barbecue burger?' They ask, 'Did you see that bathroom?'"
Cool and edgy aside, designers are looking to create a sense of comfort in washroom spaces.
"They're trying to bring in a sense of home-iness, the comfort of a residential space into a commercial space," Sengsavanh says. "At home, someone would want the plush towels."
Sengsavanh says Vancouver design style is increasingly being influenced from abroad.
Bailey agrees. "We're a pretty global world now," he says, noting that Vancouver is catching up to larger, more sophisticated urban centres in Europe and the U.S. And he notes that the expectations of patrons have become higher. "If you do a cool place," he warns, "the washrooms have to be cool, too."
Sengsavanh has designed a few washrooms in suburban malls, but he writes them off as cheap affairs. If given the opportunity and budget to design the washroom of his dreams, would he do it? He smiles.
"It would be very exciting. I think a lot of designers would jump at the chance."
Does he have his own favourite washrooms? He pauses, looks contemplatively out the window with a studied designer's gaze. Earl's, he says, and the new Joey's location on Broadway near Hemlock.
The men's washrooms in the latter, with a cool, smooth design, features life-sized photos of women mounted above the urinals. The women are staring below the horizon and laughing. One holds a camera. It's more fun than a box of monkeys.
I'm in a women's washroom-- with a woman. And for a few brief seconds, I have a Michael Kissinger moment of thrill and shame knowing that at any moment I could be caught. Not because I'm a man in a woman's private space, but because I'm underdressed for the room.
I'm with Bryna Greeno, night manager of the Cactus Club at the West Coast restaurant chain's Yaletown location on Davie Street. The room is long and narrow, with red brick walls and an exposed loft-like ceiling. Just inside the frosted glass door is a small leather sofa on a red rug; a lamp sits to one side on a small table. Across from the sofa is the vanity counter and mirror. Down the length of the room, on the same side of the mirror, are four private stalls, each fronted by a frosted glass door. A full-length mirror complements the far wall. Behind me are an electric fireplace and a large backlit picture of a neon-drenched Hong Kong streetscape.
This space is where women primp and squat, but it looks like you could hold a small reception in here. Apparently, that might be possible.
"We have people who come hang out and play cards," says Greeno. And that's just in the men's room, she adds.
The sense that you could party with your friends in the washroom is exactly the feel the Cactus Club aims for, and it's made the restaurant chain a legend in the foodie trade.
Anna Walentowicz is the design specialist and project coordinator for the West Coast restaurant chain's 16 locations, which makes her its arbiter of style, including its washrooms. We talk on the phone partly because Walentowicz, in addition to having a name that's impossible to pronounce, is busy with her design team working on the chain's upcoming restaurant in South Surrey. The new location's washroom is at the forefront of their work.
Walentowicz says the Cactus Club has paid attention to washrooms since its inception in 1988 as a Tex-Mex knockoff. But in the past decade, its focus has changed to a mid-century, modernist theme, "with a bit of an edge." (Designers clearly like the word edge.) The goal, thanks to generous allocations of time and money in design and construction, is to make its washrooms memorable and a topic of conversation among patrons.
"It's surprising to me that people talk about it as much as they do," says Walentowicz.
She identifies at least three generations of Cactus Club washrooms. The first is typified by the location on Broadway at Granville: big, sporty, brash. The second generation is at the location at Broadway and Ash, with a club sensibility marked by edgy comic-book style pictures of aggressive women. The most recent generation is at Yaletown, where when you use the washroom you truly feel as if you've gone downtown.
Greeno opens one of the frosted glass doors to show me the inner sanctum. It's a clean, private place, featuring its own lighting, ventilation and speaker in the ceiling carrying the same music as in the main restaurant. (Greeno notes a DJ entertains here on weekends.) The toilet seat is covered with a hygolet, a device that on demand covers the seat with a new plastic covering. The toilet is activated with a foot button on the floor. No need to touch anything you don't want to.
The space is immaculate. According to Greeno, the washrooms are checked every half hour. Once a year, a person from head office inspects each toilet for water flow by filling it with Cheerios and watching it flush. The air flow from the ventilation is also tested. The latter test is a good idea, since the stall is completely sealed.
Privacy through self-contained stalls is another growing trend in washroom design: to give each user a room of one's own. Walentowicz says they are made as large as possible. Not enough for a poker table perhaps, but roomy enough to enjoy a round of solitaire. The design follows rigid guidelines governing such things as the distance between the toilet and the toilet roll dispenser (a matter also covered by city bylaws) and the elevation of the door handles. Walentowicz's knowledge of human kinetics and its relationship to space and ergodynamics comes into play, and when she's monitoring the construction of new washrooms, she's been known to get out her tape measure. It's an image I privately decide would be great in the men's washroom at Joey's.
Being in a washroom with a person of the opposite sex is a novelty, if not disturbing, for most Vancouverites. For many, the voyeurism of the Opus Hotel's washroom is a far as they'd like to go. But a handful of restaurants want to make bringing men and women together in washrooms as normal as soap dispensers and electric hand dryers. Chill Winston, a new restaurant at Alexander and Carrall in Gastown, has a unisex washroom with a single unisex sink. And what a sink.
Specially designed and imported, the sink is a large, round stainless steel bowl on a stainless steel column. The bowl's centre is topped with a hexagonal pseudo-granite counter from which six infra-red triggered faucets pour water, set at a comfortable, constant temperature, into the sink. Above the sink hangs a lamp of iced-cube pendants. Each user of the sink faces other users--one side is even wheelchair accessible. The idea is to encourage conversation between strangers, and such introductions could not be more hygienic. "Hi, my name is Trent, and I just washed my hands."
Sonia Bozzi, one of Chill Winston's three owners, says the washroom was designed from the sink up. As a new eatery in a tough industry, the partners needed to create a buzz and weren't about to be stopped by a tight budget.
"We designed the restroom to provoke mixing and mingling, to break down the Vancouver cliques," says Bozzi, noting the notorious coolness with which strangers here treat each other.
The sink is the first thing seen as you enter the washroom. Around it are doors to private stalls for the men's section. Down a long hallway, featuring a discrete primping mirror, is the corner assigned for women's stalls. Each is private and clearly gender-marked. But everyone comes together at the sink.
Bozzi says some patrons are surprised to walk into the washroom and see the opposite sex. Giggles and shouts often ensue.
"You find people talk to each other this way," says Bozzi. And because everyone is on display: "It probably promotes hand washing."
Restaurateur Vance Campbell and his business partners sought much the same goal with the renovation of the Oasis on Thurlow at Davie. Having bought the pub a few months ago, they wanted to do something different with its tiny washroom.
"It was a crapper before, a real crapper," Campbell says.
Standing between a row of private stalls--two marked for men and two for women--and the clean lines of the elegant vanity and mirror, Campbell is happy with the new space. It erased the interior wall between the men's and women's spaces and allowed for both light and room to breathe in what remains a physically cramped room. But it's comfortable and casually cool. Campbell notes unisex washrooms are legal according to city bylaws as long as the entry doors and stall doors are clearly marked as either unisex or gender-specific.
As owner of one of the first locations in the city to go unisex, Campbell believes Oasis has caught on to a cultural shift. He says the reception by Oasis patrons, whom he describes as "West End diverse" with a significant gay portion, has been welcoming.
"They usually come out with big smiles on their faces. Most people say it's about time."
During my brief foray into the restaurant washrooms of the city, I realize something: Vancouverites are excited about toilets and the rooms around them. During the course of this story, everyone I talked to pitched in with their favourite. Even Courier columnist Allen Garr wants in. "Have you tried the Pinnacle Hotel?" he asks. "It's very comfortable."
I tell him I'll put it on my list. I also realize my list is small and that I've only scratched the surface. There's something interesting going on in this city, at least in its washrooms, and it gives me a warm feeling.
At the end of my interview with Bailey, I have another feeling, but it's more urgent. We shake hands, but I do not accompany him up the stairs back to the lounge. I politely excuse myself.
I have to pee. I use the bathroom he designed, and I do it with style.