Pissing in Public: The Role of the Public Washroom in A Neoliberal City

Student Name: Emily Scoular

School: University of British Columbia

Degree Program: M. Arch

Location of Project: Vancouver, British Columbia

Year of Project: 2019

Brief Description of Project:

The role of the public washroom exists as a by-product of expansive neoliberal agendas: consumption-based citizenship, privatisation of public institutions, and orientated by an obsession for profit. These conditions create a hybridised understanding of the role and right to public washrooms, the role and right to the City, and the collectives’ limited access to public-private space. Pissing in Public is the inevitable terminus of current policies, practices and behaviours of the City of Vancouver. It manifests as 312-metre ultra-slender tower looming over the heart of downtown. By co-opting Vancouver’s current real estate model, one that exchanges rights to the limited production of architecture for public amenity, this project provides access to public space through the inclusive understanding of what it means for all to occupy otherwise privileged space. The top twelve-floors are sold to cover hard and soft construction costs, land prices and fees, rezoning applications, development levies and contributions, and profit, while height restriction is exchanged for 68 floors of public amenity. The result is 408 accessible, public washrooms. This monstrous tower suggests both a future for the City that is seemingly inclusive for the public, yet limited to a singular plot of land, unable to address growing concerns and contradictions of neoliberal architectural logic.