Stalled! Proposal Offers Gender-Neutral Restroom Solution

NYC architect Joel Sanders, designer of private residences and educational spaces at Yale, Princeton, and NYU, has turned his attention to a new (and super timely) project: anti-discriminatory restrooms. The team behind this initiative, dubbed Stalled!, has come up with an inclusive restroom design that would eliminate tensions surrounding sex-segregated public toilets.

“We’ve done quite a bit of research about what would be the appropriate solution to this issue,” Sanders says. “The prevailing solution is a single unit—you take an ADA stall and you just change the signage.” What Sanders and his team believes is even more effective is a multi-stalled solution that doesn’t require users to designate themselves as different. “It’s an all-user facility, where privacy is made possible,” he explains, through features such as floor-to-ceiling coverage between stalls. “It’s perfectly possible to design gender-inclusive public restrooms that promote equal access without compromising privacy or safety, and also benefit a wide range of people including families with children and caregivers,” Sanders adds.

In addition to offering design solutions that prevent discrimination, the Stalled! team is working to amend the International Plumbing Code, which currently requires that restroom facilities be segregated by sex.

Read more about Stalled!’s proposal >