At the time of the Second Empire, Paris underwent a profound transformation that, at the behest of Napoleon III and thanks to Baron Haussmann, involved all areas of urban planning, from road planning to infrastructure, to urban decoration and furnishings. Among the latter were the public toilets, which, over time, evolved in technology and efficiency, giving way from the 1980s onwards to the 'sanisettes', typical automatic toilets distributed (there are more than 400) throughout the city. 

The Albergo Diurno Metropolitano 'Venezia' in Piazza Oberdan, closed to the public since 2003 and managed by the FAI since 2016, is an Art Deco jewel still awaiting a project to return it to public use. 

In a lively Graben square, Jugendstil lampposts mark the underground public baths still in use today, which are accessed via two separate staircases and contain original oak doors and brass washbasins.

Located within the Lady Bird Lake Hike and Bike Trail linear park along the Colorado River, the first public restroom to be built on the site is a sculptural volume consisting of forty-nine slabs of cortén steel, staggered in plan and of varying sizes, to ensure intimacy while facilitating the flow of natural light and ventilation.

Included in the circuit of 18 national tourist routes to promote the enjoyment of Norway's spectacular landscape by providing services, walking paths and public artworks, the project in remote Lofoten includes a hiking trail, a car park and a service building set in an amphitheatre and clad with locally reclaimed wood. 

The service building located in Urquiza Park houses a public restroom, a belvedere and a children's playground: the green roof minimises the insertion of the exposed concrete and U-glass construction into the natural context while, in the interior, cement and galvanised sheet metal are used to prevent vandalism and reduce the need for maintenance.

The public toilets with their eye-catching design of bright colours that invite one in, reflective surfaces that amplify the space, neon light and curtain-shaped mirrors reminiscent of cabaret shows, cheerfully evoke the capital's sizzling nightlife.

As part of the Roskilde Festival, urinals hanging from trees and made of rotationally moulded plastic were installed to prevent visitors' bodily urgency. The urinals can be connected to the main sewage system or to a tank with a pump.

The public toilet, conceived as a prototype for a new urban infrastructure and characterised by a parametric façade design, consists of folded, vertically arranged coloured aluminium strips. The depth of the aluminium shapes and the different angle of light reflection, in combination with the slightly different colours of the strips, generate an iridescent effect depending on the time of day and the position of the observer.

The work interprets the need for multifunctional street furniture in the heart of the historic town: the drop-shaped volume is composed of a prefabricated steel structure and rust-coloured coated sheet metal panels that suggest an association with the rough hulls of ships from neighbouring shipyards. The exterior has vertical ribs in striated steel that serve as bicycle racks. 

If at a latitude above the Arctic Circle, along the Lofoten Islands Tourist Road nestled between sea and mountains, the previous small service building has been blown away by the wind, the one that replaces it is a minimalist, windowless cortén steel structure to give visitors a break from the strong sensory experience of the extreme landscape outside.

Located on the side of a busy highway in the Mumbai metropolitan area and conceived exclusively for women, the complex consists of three restrooms and a nursery and is articulated around a treed patio that serves as a place for socialising and a temporary art gallery. The use of durable materials with minimal maintenance requirements - from the walls made of aluminium composite panels and stainless steel sheets, to the polyurethane in the floors - makes it a functional but no less welcoming space.

At the Giardini and at the Arsenale, as part of the '21 Venice Biennale, the theme of the bathroom was addressed in an ideological key, as a symbolic space for the conquest of human rights and ecological awareness. At the Giardini, in particular, the theme was declined in the redesigning of one of the public toilets, ennobled in the same way as the other pavilions: "The Restroom Pavilion" is announced by a series of flags instead of the traditional signage and shows a system of pipes and drains in the foreground.

As part of the Triennale di Milano 2022, an installation presents thirteen 1:1 scale segments of the toilets included in "The Tokyo Toilet" project, launched in Tokyo on the occasion of the 2020 Olympics and characterised by the creation of public toilets, signed by internationally renowned architects, located in 17 places in Shibuya. As in the original project, the Milan exhibition intends to overturn the commonplace of the public toilet and redefine its perception in the collective imagination, thanks to a functional yet welcoming design.