Studio Weave creates stone toilet block in London to "express democracy"

Stone salvaged from a demolished office building has been used to build this toilet block, designed by Studio Weave for the public in North Paddington, London.

Commissioned by Westminster City Council, the pavilion replaces an existing underground toilet block in the Maida Hill area, which had been difficult to access and attracted antisocial behaviour.

As part of the brief, Studio Weave was asked to consider how the toilets could become a safe and inviting addition to the local square, while having a low-carbon design.

Studio Weave hopes the project will send a message about the importance of investment in civic infrastructure in cities, at a time when toilets are disappearing from the public realm.

“Ultimately, they wanted this place to work better for locals, and engender more pride in the place,” Studio Weave director Eddie Blake told Dezeen.

“A public toilet can express democracy – evidence that a city still believes in itself enough to provide for its most basic, universal needs,” he explained.

“Studio Weave has recently also finished Woolwich Market pavilion, which also includes public toilets. We are enjoying working in this typology – special buildings, which are both normal and ‘everyday’ while also providing dignity and a marked presence in urban context.”

The Maida Hill toilet block’s placement and footprint were dictated by the position of the existing toilet block and available services in the square.

Inside are three toilets, one of which is wheelchair-accessible, though these have not been photographed at the council’s request.

According to Blake, the focus of the design was creating a public space that feels “dignified and civic”.

“The building needs to both be clearly visible and legible, helping orientation and minimising anti-social behaviour,” he explained. “The typology also suggests a ‘background building’, so the challenge is how to create something dignified and civic, but also part of the cityscape.”

To minimise the project’s embodied carbon, its design centred on the use of stone. Specifically, it uses a mix of pink Finnish granite and Norwegian larvikite salvaged from an office building that had been demolished in Broadgate.

Working with London firm Webb Yates and contractor Stone Masonry Company, the stone was repurposed from a decorative surface material to a load-bearing structure with a mix of split, honed or polished surfaces.

According to the studio, the team focused on minimising the processing required to reuse the stone, and so the design was developed around the size of the stone panels acquired.

“The challenge was how to minimise processing of the stone, thereby keeping costs for the public low, but also minimising carbon use,” said Blake. “So making the existing module size work with the new building was the architectural challenge.”

To ensure the stone can be demounted and repurposed in the future, and that the toilets can be easily upgraded, the stone walls are independent of the toilet’s internal units.

Studio Weave hopes that reusing materials in this way can draw attention to the concept of an urban quarry – the “vast reserve of high-quality materials waiting to be reused” in our cities.

“The challenge for our generation is how to use our resources more efficiently, but at Studio Weave we also work with cultural meaning,” Blake concluded. “Transforming the cladding from a financial institution into the structure of a toilet has a powerful message.”

Completing the project is a landscape design by Tom Massey Studio, which is deliberately low-maintenance. At the base of the building are boulders designed for use as seating.

The number of public toilets in the UK is dwindling, with the Royal Society for Public Health recently reporting that public toilets in England alone have dropped by 14 per cent in the past decade.

This same study warned that widespread “public toilet deserts” are damaging the health of people and British high streets.

In Japan, the Tokyo Toilet project recently introduced 17 public toilets to the capital’s Shibuya district. Among them was a pair of coloured glass pavilions by Shigeru Ban and a circular block by Tadao Ando.

Studio Weave is a London architecture studio founded in 2006 by Je Ahn and David Saxby. Its other recent public projects include Woolwich Market Pavilion, highlighted by Blake above, as well as a wood-lined community space added to a library in east London.

The photography is by Lorenzo Zandri. 

Project credits:

Architect: Studio Weave
Structure: Webb Yates
Building services: Webb Yates
Contractor: Stone Masonry Company/FM Conway
Landscape contractor: Window Flowers

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