Restaurant Built Out of Toilet parts
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 11.14.07
Just last night we listened to a lecture by Charles Jencks, who invented the term "adhocism", "the art of living and doing things ad hoc- using materials at hand, rather than waiting for the perfect moment or "proper" approach. As a principle of design, it begins with everyday improvisations, such as bottles for candle holders and tractor seats on wheels for dining chairs."
Professor Jencks would probably love this toilet themed restaurant in Taipei. It was inspired by a Japanese cartoon featuring rest room images; the toilet themes run through the food and drinks menus. We hope, for this one time only, that the furniture was not recycled.
The video is in chinese but still worth watching, only 22 seconds.
"Customers eat from mini plastic toilet bowls. They wipe their hands and mouths using toilet rolls hung above their tables, which may be glass-topped jumbo bathtubs.
"Most customers will bring their cameras in because the place is quite special," said Yang Chung-chi, a manager at the restaurant in north Taipei.
"It's really unusual, so special that it doesn't gross me out," said Betty Tsai, 16, a Taipei high school sophomore trying Modern Toilet for the first time on a friend's recommendation.
But for a few customers, the toilet humor is too much.
"My son thought it was disgusting and didn't know if he could finish his food," said Taipei mother Lin Li-ju.
The servings of ice cream are particularly disgusting. ::News.co.au via ::Splurch
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LLoyd,
It would be nice if when you post something like this you would be explicit about why it should be on the treehugger website. Since you yourself suggested that the toilets were not recycled I'm not sure what about this concept is green. Other discussions about the LCA of caeramics suggest that using this material when unnecessary is a poor design choice fromthe green perspective which, presumably, is the context we readers come here expecting. Thanks.
Back in the 1970's a place like this opened up in Milwaukee WI. If my memory serves me correctly it had a mainly colored decor an agglomeration of toilets of varying design age.
Only stayed in business a short while. I never ate there out of concern about encountering toilet humor on the menu.
Does anyone out there remember what it was called?
i have to agree with Jared, I don't understand why this is on TH.
But, I also have to say, I enjoyed reading it - and it was better written and more informative than other articles i've seen on this restaurant.
LA: We cover a lot of things that are not necessarily green, but demonstrate how items can be repurposed and reused. I would not necessarily call this one particularly green but like a lot of our transformer furniture and other adhocist posts, we want this site to be entertaining as well as green.
Some how I can't even dream of a toilet oriented place as my go to kind of eating place. Also. Boy am I old. When I wen't on R&R 50 years ago from Korea to Japan there were no commodes in Japan. Just clean enamal, flushable holes in the floor which I thought were pretty ecofreindly.
Well, I say thanks for posting this!
It shows how things can be reused and recycled.
It encourages others to think a little more out of the box. Although this idea is a little strange, maybe it will inspire someone else to do something just as creative and more easily accepted.
This is certainly Treehugger in my book. Even if they didn't reuse all the toilets it can show us what COULD be done. We can all take the next step in the thought process without Lloyd spelling it out for us.
Plus, it was certainly funny- particularly the, um, ice cream...
Thanks again for the post!
That's not right.