They are called the Longs Peak Toilets and a ton of thought was put into their construction. Located in Rocky Mountain National Park the tastefully designed toilets virtually dissolve into the landscape at certain angles.
The project by ColoradoBuildingWorkshop actually won The American Institute of Architects Small Project Award (structures under 5,000 square feet). Fast Company reports the gabion walls structurally fortify a steel box that makes up outhouse’s interiors which enables the structure to withstand heavy winds of up to 225 miles per hour….hell yeah.
Architect: ColoradoBuildingWorkshop
Owner: National Park Service
Location: Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
“Determined to find a better privy design, and a more humane solution of collecting waste, the National Park Service collaborated with ColoradoBuildingWorkshop, the design-build program at CU Denver, to re-design and construct new backcountry privies. The new Long’s Peak Toilets explore lightweight prefabricated construction and emerging methods of waste collection to minimize the human footprint in Colorado’s backcountry. The final design solution is a series of prefabricated structural gabion walls. Within the gabions, a series of thin steel plate moment frames triangulate the lateral loads within the structure while stones, collected on-site, are used as ballast. This innovative construction assembly allows for rapid on-site construction (the project was erected in eight days) and an architecture that disappears into the surrounding landscape.”
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images from The American Institute of Architects