Conversational Urinals

Our friend Kevin tipped us off to some special urinals out in the world right now. In his recent blog post, "Making Pee Fun," Kevin rounded up a couple of noteworthy ones. First up is On Target (pictured here), a videogame urinal designed by Marcel Neundorfer. Besides encouraging some fun, its goal is to improve hygiene and reduce cleaning costs (due to the reduced "target" size). This interactive urinal encourages "streaming accuracy." When a touch-sensitive pad detects pressure, the videogame imagery reacts to show the "gamer" how accurate, successful, and proud they should feel for their accomplishment!

Next up, an art installation, Clark Sorensen's "Nature's Call" from 2005:

Via urinal.net, this fixture from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport depicts a "fly target" embossed on the porcelain. The trend to add flies and other targets was pioneered and continues to be advanced by European airport facilities:

This one is our favorite...an Amsterdam panorama, also at Schiphol:

We found this one in AT: LA's archives. Alec writes, "Spoon Urinal by Philip Watts: Is this the beginning of in-home urinals?!"

(Thanks Kevin and Alec!)

Comments (3)

Uhh... It's all cool, but I think it might encourage a new form of 'comparing' at the urinals (as in: "how's the dude to my left doing on his video streaming?).

posted by jojo on 2006-04-26 16:42:27

The aiming thing is such a great idea. I especially like the fly. I see this idea branching off (shooting off?) into a potty training line, with cute little cartoon-bug targets, or a video game version that says "what a big boy you are!" and giggles liek those awful teletubbies.

posted by Pat on 2006-04-26 16:58:30

The best urinal that is pleasing to use and does not have the splash effect.

posted by Goodearl on 2006-10-26 16:53:23