Just for Fun: Weird and Wonderful Bathrooms

While the bathroom is undoubtedly a great place to let your creative flair run wild, these weird and wonderful examples really do win prizes for plain bizarre. From tropical delight to functional thinking, the world’s bathrooms range from beautiful to beastly.

Wonderful Wossy

Recent events mean that Jonathan Ross might have had more time to spend in the bathroom lately, and having reportedly spent £100,000 on a luxury redesign, he’ll want to enjoy every minute. Featuring a made to measure marble bath worth £40,000 and shaped like an egg, what better place to dwell on past mistakes?

Clever Convenience

The Japanese rarely disappoint where weird and wonderful designs are concerned. Take the Intelligence Toilet for starters. Created for the health freak who has everything, the Intelligence Toilet is something of a medical marvel. While you sit comfortably your blood pressure, body fat percentage, weight and urine sugar levels are measured. Based on the information gathered, the toilet prescribes changes to your diet and exercise regime. And you thought the bathroom was a place for peace and quiet?

Bathroom Beauty

Time for a touch of tropical luxury now, and a design that really wouldn’t work on British shores. Travel a few hundred miles and you’ll find some opulent and upmarket hotels treat you to open air bathrooms – think stunning spa baths and rain showers, set amongst beautiful fragrant flowers and sensual colours. Built entirely for comfort, where better to enjoy a long bath than at the edge of the clear blue Indian Ocean?

No Queue Loo

Next, it’s the turn of form and function as we examine (not too closely) Beijing’s 1,000 stall public convenience. At over 32,000 feet in size, some of the features you might find in the world’s biggest public loo include televisions, music and Egyptian decor. For the boys, the urinals have been designed in varying shapes, including crocodile mouths. We think this is one loo where you’ll never need to queue.

Lavatory Living

South Korea’s World Toilet Association was launched amongst much pomp and ceremony in Southern Seoul with the opening of a huge home built in the shape of a toilet. Featuring the latest in water-saving technology, this bizarre house holds four luxury lavatories with a deluxe bathroom in the middle. Believe it or not, the roof has even been designed to lift like the lid of a toilet. Weird, definitely, but wonderful? You decide!

Small Wonder

Last but by no means least we revisit China for our smallest example. At the furthest end of the spectrum from communal grandeur, here the street side minimalist open air public toilet invites the male user to step in, with a small door covering only a small section of the body between waist and rear. Within easy reach of passing pedestrians this option’s only for the really desperate, or very brave.

Whether you feel inspired or horrified by this journey around the world’s weird and wonderful bathrooms, we’re sure you’ll look at yours with a renewed sense of comfort! Suddenly the odd bit of greying grouting doesn’t look so bad, does it?