Eric, thanks for your input. Water closet compartments are required to "enclose" the fixture, with walls or partitions and a door, to ensure privacy as defined by IPC Chapter 4. Enclose means to close-in, as in floor to ceiling compartments and doors, to ensure privacy. Designers should understand the definition of enclose.
Why partial-height compartments and doors have been approved is beyond me - other than using the ADA 9-inch toe space as an excuse to make all compartments in the room partial-height too. ADA should never have included compartment dimensions with a 9-inch toe space that conflicts with enclosing the fixture to ensure privacy.
Enclose does not mean leaving the compartments and doors open at the top either. Gaps between the partition sides and around the door closure also do not ensure privacy.
This lack of privacy is causing many problems with the public.
Floor to ceiling ADA compartments are not much wider or longer than the partial-height ADA compartments with a 9-inch toe space - see 2010 ADA, Section 604.8 (compartments) 604.8.1.4 (toe space). When the public circulation area within one unisex group facility is less than that for two separate-sex group facilities, total square footage is being reduced anyway.
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Bruce Pitts
A&E Mechanical
self
Aiken SC
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Original Message:
Sent: 10-23-2019 10:49
From: Eric Davis
Subject: Unisex, multi-stall restrooms are allowed by the 2021 International Plumbing & Building Codes
Of course there is the caveat that owners need to be aware of regarding accessibility - this will mean larger toilet rooms. I've long despised the dignity-stealing standard of toilet partitions stopping nearly a foot off the floor. It started as a way to make floors easier to keep clean, which is a good thing, but then also the ADA requirements where one either needs to make a(n even) wider stall to allow a turning circle in an accessible stall, to allow the bottoms of the partitions to be lower, or more commonly to keep them high enough for toe/foot clearance in a wheelchair, has just become adopted by lazy designers as the standard for ALL stalls. It's dehumanizing, especially in the narrower, non-accessible stalls, to sit that close to someone else with that large a clearance to the bottom of the partition.
All that is to say yes, the privacy measures you recommend above are good and appropriate. It's just that owners need to understand that total square footage given to toilet rooms in public or publicly-accessible facilities are going to be larger now. The bean counters who live by floor plate efficiency percentages, oblivious to three-dimensional reality or functional norms, are going to have a canary.
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Eric Davis AIA
Deputy Director, Capital Planning
Cook County Government
Oak Park IL
Original Message:
Sent: 02-21-2019 15:53
From: Bruce Pitts
Subject: Unisex, multi-stall restrooms are allowed by the 2021 International Plumbing & Building Codes
The 2021 IPC Section 403.2 and IBC 2902.2 will allow group toilet rooms to be gender-neutral. Urinals can either be in an area visually separated area from the remainder of the facility or each shall be located in a compartment.
The code language that will be printed seems way too vague for having all genders in the same facility and for privacy. Almost anything goes as far as partition and door heights are concerned.
For water closets or urinals, I suggest floor to ceiling compartments with solid, full-height, lockable doors and occupied indicators. Undercut each door no more than ½" for exhaust make-up air and for best privacy. Do not specify louvered doors.
Safety
For safety in gender-neutral, group facilities, I might suggest that the toilet room have a back wall, sidewalls and an open front leading into common areas like egress corridors or break rooms. Put an island of shared lavatories between the room opening and the compartments. This may need approval by a local code official as lavatories are required to be in toilet rooms per the 2018 IPC 405.3.2 yet no definition of a toilet room exists in Chapter 2. So an open front 'toilet room' may need approval.
This might be best practice instead
Gender-neutral, single-user toilet rooms are defined in the 2018 and 2021 IPC 403.1.2 and IBC 2902.1.2. These are probably an even better and safer way - see attached drawing.
When clustered in one location and the doors opening into common areas, single-users can require less square footage than a gender-neutral, group facility. If not clustered, each single-user must be accessible per the first sentence of IBC 1109.2 (Exception 3 allows a 50% reduction in accessible toilet rooms when clustering).
Why gender-neutral
Gender-neutral facilities solve state bathroom bills (transgender issues), provide potty parity, accommodate opposite-sex parent-caregivers and can reduce floor area. Privacy like this can also help the massive 14.4% of the population with Paruresis (Wikipedia) to better function in society.
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Bruce Pitts
A&E Mechanical
self
Aiken SC
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