How to design locker room and dorm showers in the new age Anthony went on to say that several security breaches while living in the dorms meant greater risks on top of the discomfort some residents feel walking through coed hallways wrapped in a towel. She is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While this is fine for some people, others experience stress in this situation.ĭr. One of which is the fact that after your shower, unless you get fully dressed while still in the bathroom, which is made difficult by the wet floor and cramped stall, you must walk through a (usually) co-ed hallway in your towel to return to your dorm room. It did present some obstacles that others strongly disliked. These facilities require users to enter with a “shower caddy” full of their toiletries needed for bathing. Anthony, Ph.D., writes:Ĭommunal bathrooms present many negative issues for their users, along with creating efficiency of space. In an article by Disadvantaged by Design, author Kathryn H. One of the clearest drivers on the issue of bathing privacy in multi-occupant facilities has been the co-ed integration of housing at colleges and universities. However, times and culture change – new norms about bathing privacy and the entire transgender trend have raised new concerns, challenges, and considerations as it relates to bathroom and shower design. Pipe drops into multi-head showering stanchions reduced mechanical first costs in new construction. In their day, the open concept of communal showers made sense both from a design and economic standpoint – multiple showering “stations” within a given space increased efficiency, capacity and throughput. The communal athletic shower certainly was fodder for Hollywood’s treatment of high school and college comedy. Times and culture change drive innovation in locker room design

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